Search - author

 
 
Former U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a livestream event with Iowa’s attorney general, Brenna Bird in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 14, 2024

U.S. presidential election heats up as frigid Iowa tests Trump

With a commanding lead in polls, the ex-president is expected easily to win the Midwestern state's first-in-the-nation vote.
U.S. President Joe Biden and his South Korean counterpart, Yoon Suk-yeol, visit a Samsung semiconductor factory in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, in May 2022.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2024

South Korea's economic strategy amid the U.S.-China rivalry

If the world is to avoid incurring increasingly high costs from fragmentation, the U.S. and China must learn how to coexist and engage in fair competition.
Tanaka takes part in a signing ceremony for the Japan-Uruguay Investment Agreement with Uruguay's Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs Luis Porto in 2015.
BUSINESS / WOMEN AT WORK
Jan 23, 2024

Why positivity is an asset in a career of PR and diplomacy

Keiko Tanaka went from an office at Nissan to the ambassador's residence in Uruguay.
The continued demand for and access to banned Nvidia chips underlines the lack of good alternatives for Chinese firms despite the nascent development of rival products from Huawei and others.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 15, 2024

China's military and government acquire Nvidia chips despite ban

The sales by largely unknown Chinese suppliers highlight the difficulties Washington faces.
Farmers dry coffee beans at the Thiririka farming cooperative in Kiambu County, Kenya, in November 2022.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 15, 2024

Is it time for a coffee cartel?

If farmers in the developing world are prevented from getting their fair share from coffee production they should take matters into their own hands.
The "wolf warrior" metaphor is used for Chinese diplomats who are known for aggressively making their country’s case on the world stage.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 16, 2024

Doves, pandas and dragons: Decoding the global political zoo

Animal metaphors help us reflect on the rich and varied landscape of foreign policy discourse.
Sunset at Cape Puyuni in Hokkaido, Japan. The northern island is home to the indigenous Ainu.
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
Jan 21, 2024

To Bird, a savage. To Chiri, alive and aglow.

When given a pen, Yukie Chiri wrote about the Ainu in ways outsiders never tried to understand.
The Tsukuba Geo Museum is a hands-on exhibition facility.
ESG CONSORTIUM
Jan 22, 2024

New geopark museum, cycle park showcase Tsukuba’s attractions

The Ibaraki city of Tsukuba in November launched a new facility, Mt. Tsukuba Gate Park, that focuses on promoting the charms of the Mt. Tsukuba Area Geopark and supporting Japan’s cycling culture. City officials stationed there explained what the facility offers and how they aim to nurture the civic...
Left-wing activists take part in a rally in Dhaka on Jan. 3 to demand a new election under Bangladesh's caretaker government.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 18, 2024

Weeks into 2024 and the world seems on edge

The global system that emerged after World War II is giving way to a world without order.
U.S. President Joe Biden walks to board Marine One at Delaware Air National Guard Base, in New Castle, Delaware, on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 22, 2024

Did Biden blunder with New Hampshire primary snub?

After a dispute with officials in New Hampshire over scheduling, he will not be on the ballot when the state's primary kicks off the party's nomination process on Tuesday.
Hindu devotees gather in a procession on the eve of the opening of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, India, on Sunday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 22, 2024

The slow death of India’s brief secular democracy

The opening of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, India, presided over by Prime Minister Modi culminates Hindu nationalism's ascent over secularism in Indian politics.
Fire in the Taiga forest outside Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk in 2014
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jan 23, 2024

Scientists warn missing Russian data causing Arctic climate blind spots

The Arctic is warming between two and four times faster than the rest of the planet and holds glaciers, forests and carbon-rich frozen soils at risk of irreversible change.
Coming out of the pandemic, job vacancies were historically high in the U.S. because firms needed workers and could not find them.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2024

This year will mark the end of the post-pandemic economy

The trade-off between bringing down inflation and harming growth will come back with a vengeance in the post-pandemic economy.
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.
Outlawing the second-most popular party in Germany would be democratically questionable and could have negative consequences.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 24, 2024

Should Germany’s AfD party be banned?

Germany's democratic values should be upheld by engaging with disgruntled voters in the voting booth, rather than seeking a legal ban.
Executive officer, producer and director Masayoshi Yokoyama poses next to a promotional poster for Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. The Yakuza gangster series has long been seen as a Japanese version of Grand Theft Auto, but Yokoyama dismisses any such comparison.
LIFE / Digital
Jan 25, 2024

'We don't hit women': How Yakuza differs from Grand Theft Auto

Designer Masayoshi Yokoyama sat down to discuss video game violence ahead of the Jan. 26 release of the latest in the Yakuza series.
With a little dehydration and a few pinches of Japan's favorite mold, you've got yourself some game-ready wings with a Tokyo twist.
LIFE / Food & Drink / The Recipe Box
Jan 28, 2024

Recipe: Kickoff-ready glazed wings

These ponzu-glazed wings are a perfect finger food to enjoy alongside your early-morning football.
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.
Fans and deltas formed by water and sediment are seen in the Jezero Crater on Mars in this false color image taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and published in May 2019.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 27, 2024

Rover data confirms ancient lake sediments on Mars

The findings substantiate previous orbital imagery and other data leading scientists to theorize that portions of Mars may have harbored microbial life.
Aissam Dam, 11, the first person to receive gene therapy in the U.S. for congenital deafness, signs to an interpreter during an interview at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia on Jan. 16.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 28, 2024

'Game changer': Gene therapy offers hope for children born deaf

The treatment focuses on a rare genetic mutation that affects only a small number of the 26 million people with congenital deafness globally.
Flour is distributed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency at its headquarters in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, in November.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 28, 2024

Major donors pause funding for U.N. agency as scandal widens

One of the area's largest employers, the UNRWA is a lifeline for Palestinians in Gaza, many of whom are facing starvation after 16 weeks of war.
The thick, supposedly lucky sushi rolls of Setsubun are full of it.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jan 31, 2024

How a trendy sushi roll usurped the traditions of Setsubun

The lore around “ehōmaki” sounds just whacky enough to make it an old custom, but it turns out to be a fairly recent phenomenon.
At the heart of European Union thinking about economic security is fear that economic dependencies will be weaponized.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 30, 2024

EU’s dilemma: balancing national and economic security

At the heart of EU thinking about economic security is fear that economic dependencies will be weaponized.
The victory of Ukraine-born Karolina Shiino (center) in the Miss Japan contest held last month has sparked a debate on what makes someone truly Japanese.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 1, 2024

A Ukraine-born beauty queen and what it means to be Japanese

Shiino's Miss Japan victory has ignited a debate on the definition of "Japaneseness," and raises questions on what it truly means to be Japanese.
Western strategy in the Middle East has been a failure, leaving the region less stable than ever, exemplified by the conflict in Gaza.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2024

Why 'the rest' are rejecting the West

Western strategy in the Middle East has been a failure, leaving the region less stable than ever.
ENVIRONMENT / Earth science / OUR PLANET
Feb 4, 2024

For Japan, earthquakes are an existential matter

The New Year's Day quake was a stark reminder of how Japan has been shaped by rumbling, grinding and often deadly convulsions and volcanic activity.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, attends a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington on Wednesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 5, 2024

Zuckerberg’s apology isn’t enough to stop children being harmed

META's CEO apologized to the families of children abused via social media, but real regulation is needed for such harm to be avoided in the first place.
A man walks through panels at a solar power plant under construction in Aksu, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, in 2012.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 6, 2024

Banned Chinese solar goods worth billions find route to U.S. via India

Amid a solar boom, India’s largest panel-maker has sent millions of panels to the U.S. made with parts from a Chinese firm denied entry to the U.S. market.
Taylor Swift (right) cheers on her boyfriend Travis Kelce's team, the Kansas City Chiefs, in the AFC divisional round playoff game against the Buffalo Bills in Orchard Park, New York, on Jan. 21. The Chiefs will play the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 6, 2024

Taylor Swift rocks the world and drives the far right crazy

The “Swift effect” has become a force in both U.S. domestic politics and international relations.
Taiwanese soldiers train at a base in Hsinchu, Taiwan, on Tuesday. The island has decided to extend compulsory military service for young males from four months to one year amid increasing threats from China.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 7, 2024

Taiwan extends military conscription, a system Japan might want to consider

As Japan struggles to fill its military ranks, compulsory national service might be its only solution.

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake