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Victor Salinas, who was recruited to travel to Russia in a military support role but eventually changed his mind, at his home near Havana on Sept. 12.
WORLD
Sep 30, 2023

How Cubans were recruited to fight for Russia

Cubans can earn a windfall for enlisting with the Russian army amid Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 3, 2023

Japan Airlines revamps first class with luxury double-bed suites

The firm is calculating that a premium-heavy configuration on its future planes will help deliver greater profitability.
Hong Kong and China Gas, part of billionaire Lee Shau Kee’s business empire, is accelerating an expansion of biofuel firm EcoCeres in foreign markets.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 3, 2023

Hong Kong tycoon’s energy empire ramps up green jet fuel push

EcoCeres, one of Asia’s largest producers of green jet fuel, is exploring the possibility of expanding into new markets like the U.S. and the Middle East.
Tourists leave Ittoqqortoormiit, Denmark, after visiting the village on Aug. 20.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Oct 4, 2023

Inuit hunters blame cruise ships as narwhal disappear

While some view Arctic tourism as a means to reinvigorate the community, others worry it could destroy the last surviving Inuit hunting societies.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 6, 2023

A year after borders fully opened, tourism vocab is also back

After tourists fully returned to Japan last October, so did a term we hadn't heard since before the pandemic: overtourism.
The charges against a former U.S. Army soldier underscore the volume of national security secrets flowing to China, which has made aggressive efforts to recruit spies and steal technology.
WORLD
Oct 7, 2023

Ex-U.S. soldier accused of trying to give classified info to China

The underscore the volume of U.S. security secrets flowing to China, which has made aggressive efforts to recruit spies and steal technology.
Due to the small number of priests in the Orthodox Church in Japan, some have to care for as many as five different churches.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Oct 14, 2023

Rev. Stephen Keiichi Uchida: 'Your life has value’

Rev. Stephen Keiichi Uchida serves as a priest in the Orthodox Church in Japan and leads three churches in rural Kushiro, Hokkaido.
The U.K.'s decision to cut back on its HS2 high-speed rail network runs contrary to the path taken by Japan, which stuck to a long-term infrastructure plan.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 11, 2023

U.K. effort to imitate Japan's shinkansen falls short

There is value of sticking to a long-term infrastructure plan, as Japan has done for almost 50 years with its high-speed rail system.
Booking.com has issued a statement on their website apologizing for “updates to their payment system” that are causing issues for some of their partners, including many hotels in Japan.
JAPAN / Society
Oct 15, 2023

Japanese hotel owners plan to sue Booking.com over payment failure

Hotel owners say that over the past few months, Booking.com has failed to promptly transfer customer payments to hotels.
A U.S. Border Patrol agent searches for migrants trying to enter the United States from the Mexico border, in a desert area in Sunland Park, New Mexico.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 19, 2023

Republicans use Israeli-Hamas war to push hard line on immigration

U.S. presidential hopefuls are attempting to link a foreign conflict to the domestic debate over immigration.
Arctic climate scientists tend to be a close-knit community, but the war in Ukraine upended that status quo.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Oct 19, 2023

Climate science in Arctic ‘broken’ as U.S. and Europe isolate Russia

Arctic climate scientists tend to be a close-knit community, but the war in Ukraine has upended that status quo.
Former firefighter Yoshifumi Usui now guides tourists in search of active pursuits in and around the Aso caldera.
LIFE / Travel
Oct 21, 2023

In volcanic Aso, the land gives much more than it takes

Locals in Aso have a saying: “The land takes away, but it gives us something, too.”
Chef Stuart Brioza (left) of San Francisco’s State Bird Provisions explores the vineyard at Domaine Takahiko in Yoichi, together with his partner, Nicole Krasinski, and their son, Jasper.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Oct 22, 2023

A California chef's quest across Hokkaido for umami

Acclaimed chef Stuart Brioza has been to Hokkaido many times — but never with a focus like this on the island’s stunning natural bounty.
In almost 30 years of fighting wildfire, Art Gonzales has seen blazes grow progressively bigger and stranger.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Oct 20, 2023

‘It’s all-consuming.’ Wildfire whispering is now a year-round job

What was once limited to certain months now encompasses an entire ‘fire year'
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 27, 2023

Kansai superiority at stake in this year's Japan Series

The Buffaloes and the Tigers meet in Game 1 in Osaka on Saturday night.
Suzuki President and Representative Director Toshihiro Suzuki unveils the Suzu-Ride at a press day of the Japan Mobility Show at Tokyo Big Sight in Tokyo on Oct. 25.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 1, 2023

New mobility concepts cater to older people's love for the road

The four-wheeled vehicles categorized as "specified small motorized bicycles" can be driven on public roads by anyone 16 or over without a license.
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2023

Visitors to Japan in October exceed pre-COVID level for first time

Visitor numbers improved to 100.8% of levels seen in 2019 before the outbreak of COVID-19 led to travel curbs around the world.
Pedestrians walk past stores in the Koenji district in Tokyo on Oct. 29.
BUSINESS
Nov 23, 2023

Personal shopping services in Japan buoyed by weak yen

Shoppers who cannot physically be in Japan are outsourcing their hunt for bargains to remote shopping services.
Akina Shu has visited around 50 countries as a speaker and ambassador on the digital nomad lifestyle since 2020.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Nov 27, 2023

Japan is enticing for digital nomads, but visa hurdles remain

While the country does not offer a digital nomad visa, the government is working on introducing one sometime in 2024.
A bed bug in Paris in September
JAPAN / Society
Nov 27, 2023

Bedbugs are spreading in South Korea and China. Is Japan next?

Experts caution that it may only be a matter of time, given the number of travelers now arriving in the country.
U.S. prosecutors accused Amit Patel, the Jacksonville Jaguars' former manager of financial planning and analysis, of stealing the money to fund a luxurious lifestyle
MORE SPORTS
Dec 8, 2023

Ex-Jaguars executive accused of stealing $22 million from team

U.S. prosecutors accused Amit Patel, the team’s former manager of financial planning and analysis, of stealing the money to fund a luxurious lifestyle.
The image of activist Frances Hui is displayed during a news conference to issue arrest warrants in Hong Kong on Thursday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 15, 2023

Hong Kong police expand dragnet on overseas pro-democracy activists

The move, which adds to a list of eight overseas activists deemed fugitives by authorities in July, triggered criticism from the U.S. and U.K.
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2018
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
Dec 17, 2023

A made-in-Japan solution for space junk that goes against the grain

As space junk clogs Earth's orbit, a Kyoto University team has a new solution: wooden satellites.
Yemenis chant slogans and wave Palestinian flags during a march in solidarity with the people of Gaza, in Yemen's Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa on Dec.15, 2023. The Houthis have been firing on ships allegedly linked to Israel in the Red Sea in avowed solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 4, 2024

U.S., allies warn Houthis of 'consequences' of ship attacks

Warning comes as freight rates spike due to re-routing of vessels around Africa to avoid the Red Sea, where the Iran-backed militant group is active.
The single biggest factor that will make satellites more accessible is the advent of private launch providers led by SpaceX.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 5, 2024

You too may one day have your own satellite

Demand for personal satellites will rise as their uses range from monitoring crops to watching over the family dog.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, with other leaders in June 2019.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jan 10, 2024

Xi eyes Global South as China elevates ties with record number of nations

Beijing elevated the way it described ties with 17 countries and territories, most of them from the developing world.
U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel speaks during a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo on Thursday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 18, 2024

U.S. envoy to Japan vows to continue calling out Chinese ‘hypocrisy’

Emanuel also gave a speech on what he described as Japan’s “groundbreaking accomplishments” in fields such as defense, economic growth and diplomacy.
JAPAN / Society
Jan 22, 2024

Regional business creators system picks up steam in Japan

The system allows local governments to leverage private-sector know-how in areas including tourism promotion and digitalization.
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2024

Kishida's new aid package aims to help recovery of quake-hit areas

It will offer subsidies to small and medium-sized firms in Ishikawa Prefecture, as well as those in neighboring Niigata, Toyama, and Fukui prefectures.
New research estimates that nearly 65,000 pregnancies have resulted from rape in the 14 states that imposed total abortion bans after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2024

Post-Roe America’s national shame: 65,000 forced pregnancies

New data has been filling in the picture of what access to reproductive health care looks like in the U.S. And the image forming is increasingly grim.

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