Search - 2021

 
 
Hong Kong activist Tang Ngok-kwan speaks to reporters in Hong Kong on Thursday after the Court of Final Appeal ruled in his favor and quashed his jail term for refusing to hand over information to the city's national security police.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 6, 2025

Hong Kong’s Tiananmen activists win rare appeal in security case

The ruling marked a rare victory in challenging the enforcement of the national security law imposed by Beijing.
Tiger Woods speak at The Genesis Invitational in San Diego, on Feb. 16.
MORE SPORTS / Golf
Mar 6, 2025

Tiger Woods says 'heart not into practicing right now'

With the Masters looming five weeks away, it may prove challenging for the 15-time major champion to be ready for Augusta.
Firefighters battle a wildfire in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, on Thursday.
JAPAN
Mar 6, 2025

Wildfire slows in Iwate as government announces relief support

The city saw 26.5 millimeters of rain on Wednesday, far exceeding the 2.5mm total for the entire month of February.
Lewis Hamilton is in his first season with Ferrari after a move from Mercedes.
MORE SPORTS / Auto Racing
Mar 7, 2025

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc put on show for Ferrari fans in Milan

Some 35,000 "tifosi" attended the event as seven-time world champion Hamilton performed smoking tire burnouts after filling the city streets with noise.
Hiroko Nagano, a former member of the assembly of Tokyo's Toshima Ward, speaks during an interview in Tokyo in January.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 7, 2025

Female assembly members with children seeing better work conditions

As of July 2024, there were 5,187 female municipal assembly members in the country, or only 17.9% of the total, however.
Bar Bota, the 37th-floor watering hole at the Four Seasons Osaka, looks out on a glittering cityscape better known for its cheap eats and drinks.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 9, 2025

Slowly but surely, Osaka emerges from Kyoto’s fine-dining shadow

The majority of tourists go to Osaka with street food on their minds, but the city is rapidly improve its elevated dining options as well.
“May You Have Delicious Meals” focuses on a trio of young office workers at the same workplace who have mixed feelings for food and each other.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 8, 2025

‘May You Have Delicious Meals’: The ugly taste of office and gender politics

The English-language debut of Junko Takase’s Akutagawa Prize-winning novel serves complex prose in translation by Morgan Giles.
“The Place of Shells” takes place mostly in Gottingen, Germany, where both the author and the book's narrator live, while also jumping both geographically and temporally to Sendai, Japan, through memories of the 3/11 disaster and its aftermath.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 10, 2025

Grief ebbs and flows between two tragedies in 'The Place of Shells'

Mai Ishizawa’s debut novel, which won one of the three Akutagawa Prizes awarded in 2021, is also her first to be released in English, translated by Polly Barton.
IPC President Andrew Parsons poses for photos before a news conference at the Milano Cortina 2026 Organising Committee headquarters in Milan, Italy.
PARALYMPICS
Mar 7, 2025

IPC chief tasks sports with setting own rules for transgender athletes

The Olympic Games and the Paralympics currently allow transgender athletes to compete.
Japan is grappling with a budget shortfall, and while raising the tax-free threshold has sparked political debate, the country's booming tourism industry presents an untapped revenue source.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 7, 2025

Japan has a revenue hole. Plug it with tourists

More than 35 years after sales tax was first introduced, it remains incredibly unpopular and reducing it is a regular promise of opposition parties.
Globally, women are severely underrepresented among leading roles in cinema, with female directors accounting for just over 10% of the industry in Japan. Achieving gender equality on-set would have far-reaching consequences for the whole of society.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 7, 2025

Without women behind the camera, equality stays out of the frame

Cinema isn't only about what stories are told, but who tells them. Overcoming severe underrepresentation, women are reshaping the film industry and cultural narratives.
Hoshoryu will make his debut at yokozuna during the Spring Grand Sumo Tournament, which begins in Osaka on Sunday.
SUMO
Mar 7, 2025

New yokozuna Hoshoryu and rising star Onosato enter Spring Basho as favorites

Hoshoryu already has a pair of titles to his name, and is coming off perhaps the most impressive eight-bout stretch of his career to date.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks to members of Iran's air force in Tehran in February.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 8, 2025

Trump says he sent Iran leader letter urging nuclear talks

Trump said that while he isn’t ruling out a military intervention, he would "rather negotiate a deal.”
Qianmen street, Beijing, in March 2023. Though the immediate shock has passed, COVID-19's legacy continues to reshape global economies and markets.
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 8, 2025

Five years on, the economic impact of COVID-19 lingers

Though the immediate shock has passed, COVID-19's legacy continues to reshape global economies and markets.
Personal items that were collected after the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011 are on display at a facility in the city of Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture.
JAPAN
Mar 9, 2025

Municipalities to end storage of personal items collected after 3/11

When asked what is needed to continue storing collected personal items, 16 municipalities cited the need for storage and display space, while 10 mentioned budget constraints.
Excavators to be used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to remove debris from homes destroyed by the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / FOCUS
Mar 10, 2025

Cascading extreme weather events unleash billions in damages globally

Compound weather, when two or more concurrent events that collectively yield a result worse than if each had occurred on its own, are occurring more frequently.
The Ukedo Elementary School Ruins in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, in January. The Fukushima Prefectural Government offers training sessions for new prefectural government recruits to visit the school, the prefecture's sole preserved disaster-hit structure.
JAPAN
Mar 10, 2025

14 years on, prefectural governments work to pass on lessons to new hires

Many prefectural officials who were involved in front-line operations in the immediate aftermath of the massive earthquake and tsunami are retiring.
Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte speaks during a gathering with the Philippine community in Hong Kong on March 9.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Mar 11, 2025

Former Philippine President Duterte arrested over crimes against humanity

Police in Manila acted on an International Criminal Court warrant tied to Duterte's deadly war on drugs.
An election campaign banner is attached to a rock ahead of Tuesday's general election in Nuuk, Greenland, on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 11, 2025

In wake of Trump's threats, Greenland holds parliamentary election

Independence has been a key campaign theme in the semiautonomous territory of Denmark after the U.S. president said he wants control over the island.
Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold against the Los Angeles Rams during an NFC wild card game at State Farm Stadium on Jan. 13. Darnold reportedly plans to sign with the Seahawks.
MORE SPORTS / Football
Mar 11, 2025

QB Sam Darnold to sign $100 million contract with Seahawks: reports

Darnold parlayed a career season with the Minnesota Vikings into the largest contract of his career.
Displaced residents work in an illegal poppy field for their livelihood during the fighting between Myanmar's military and KNDF (Karenni Nationalities Defense Force) in Pekon Township, on the border of Karen State and southern Shan State, Myanmar.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Mar 11, 2025

Reluctant opium farmers toil for survival in war-ravaged Myanmar

The country's opiate economy — including the value of domestic consumption as well as exports abroad — is estimated to be between $589 million and $1.57 billion.
Signage at a Tesla store in Colma, California, on Monday. Tesla shares plunged to their worst day in more than four years, extending a slide in 2025 amid growing concerns on Wall Street about demand for the company's electric cars.
BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 11, 2025

Tesla’s stock defied gravity for years. Is Elon Musk’s EV party over?

The bulk of Tesla's worth rests on hopes for autonomous vehicles it hasn't yet delivered, despite Musk's continued promises.
Flowers are lain near the spot where Airi Sato was stabbed as she was live streaming in front of Takadanobaba Station in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward on Tuesday. Sato died of her wounds later that day.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 12, 2025

Dozens of wounds found on Tokyo stabbing victim

Takano is suspected of stabbing Sato with a knife while she was live-streaming a video on a street in front of Takadanobaba Station in Shinjuku Ward.
Tiger Woods waves to the fans at The Genesis Invitational golf tournament at Torrey Pines in San Diego on Feb. 16.
MORE SPORTS / Golf
Mar 12, 2025

Tiger Woods has surgery for ruptured Achilles tendon

The recovery time from an Achilles rupture can often last several months, which would almost certainly rule Woods out from playing in any of this season's majors.
Tokyo police at a site where a woman had been stabbed while livestreaming in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward on Tuesday
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 12, 2025

Tokyo livestream murder victim stabbed over alleged debt dispute

The attack occurred at around 9:50 a.m. on Tuesday in Takadanobaba, Shinjuku Ward, while the 22-year-old woman victim was livestreaming.
PSG's Gianluigi Donnarumma celebrates after the match against Liverpool at Anfield on Tuesday.
SOCCER
Mar 12, 2025

Transformed PSG makes statement by ousting Liverpool

PSG was formerly almost a laughing stock around Europe for its ability to lose big Champions League knockout ties in improbable circumstances.
Naohisa Hoshikawa, chief executive officer and founder of Ookuma Diamond Device, in Sapporo in February. Hoshikawa says the potential of diamond semiconductors goes beyond decommissioning work, likening them to the U.S. Apollo manned lunar landing program, which gave birth to technological innovations affecting everyday life.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Mar 12, 2025

Diamond chips could be key to decommissioning of Fukushima nuclear plant

Made with artificial diamonds, such chips are regarded as the "ultimate semiconductors" — they can withstand high levels of radiation as well as high voltages and temperatures.
Bookshelves storing disaster-related documents at the Sendai City Archives in Sendai in February
JAPAN
Mar 12, 2025

Local governments struggle to preserve records of March 2011 disaster

Fourteen years later, securing storage space has become a growing obstacle as the volume of records continues to increase.

Longform

Wealthier women in the prewar era had been the targets of various media-related health campaigns that mistakenly encouraged them to avoid everything from riding bicycles to reading novels when their monthly cycles came around.
Menstruation in Japan: Breaking the silence, slowly