Search - opinion

 
 
California’s share of U.S. wine production, around 90% in the 1990s and 2000s, dropped below 80% for the first time on record in 2022.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 27, 2024

Who will save the U.S. wine industry? Not California boomers.

California’s share of U.S. wine production, around 90% in the 1990s and 2000s, dropped below 80% for the first time on record in 2022.
A woman pays her respects at a makeshift memorial in front of the Crocus City Hall in Moscow on Friday, a week after a deadly attack by gunmen there killed at least 143 people.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 31, 2024

Putin's conspiracy theories make Russians less safe

The Kremlin hopes that blaming Kyiv and the West for the attack will turn a difficult domestic political situation to its advantage.
A boy watches Self-Defense Forces live-fire drills in Gotemba, Shizuoka Prefecture, in 2017. Japan’s defense posture is shifting, as the government’s recent approval of new arms export regulations signals.  
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 1, 2024

Is Japan leaving pacifism behind?

How a previous generation of Japanese leaders, those who made defense budget and arms export limits a national credo, would view the current shift.
Around 90% of China’s increased oil demand between 2021 and 2024 comes from chemical feedstocks, driven by the manufacturing of products such as those sold by fast-fashion retailers Shein and Tamu.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 1, 2024

China's Shein and Temu are driving oil, not Toyota and GM

The cause behind recent a surge in China's oil demand is not to be found in people's transport habits, including car use, but in fast-fashion clothing.
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried arrives at a courthouse in New York in March 2023. On Thursday, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 1, 2024

Sam Bankman-Fried's 25-year sentence is a warning to crypto

The former FTX CEO's conviction to 25 years in prison sends a clear message to cryptocurrency fraudsters. The costs of misconduct outweigh the benefits.
New recruits of the Ukrainian military's 1st Da Vinci Wolves Separate Mechanized Battalion take part in a military exercise in an undisclosed location in central Ukraine on March 12.
COMMENTARY / World / Geoeconomic Briefing
Apr 7, 2024

Ukraine war has brought new challenges for international security

Democracies are being forced to confront the idea of hybrid warfare and the danger of full-scale conflict.
People wait to collect drinking water on March 14 amid an ongoing water crisis in Bengaluru, which has been hit by drought.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 2, 2024

India’s most innovative cities are running out of water

Drought is crippling India's tech hubs of Bengaluru and Hyderabad, casting a dark shadow on these cities' attractiveness in the era of climate change.
Chinese Coast Guard ships fire water cannons at a Philippine boat during a supply mission near Second Thomas Shoal in the disputed South China Sea on March 5. This incident highlights the danger that such confrontations could have for sparking a wider conflict.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 2, 2024

Beware the steady creep toward crisis in the South China Sea

The Philippines is pushing back. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has adopted a policy of “assertive transparency” to show the world what China is doing.
Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Toshimitsu Motegi (left), Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (center), and Taro Aso, the party's vice president, meet in Tokyo on Monday.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 2, 2024

LDP’s formal punishment likely to spark discontent

Exempting Kishida and Nikai from any reprimands over the slush funds scandal will likely deepen rifts within the party, experts say.
The National Museum of China following the closing of the Second Session of the 14th National People's Congress in Beijing on March 11
WORLD / Politics
Apr 3, 2024

China’s advancing efforts to influence the U.S. election raise alarms

The accounts signal a potential shift in how Beijing aims to influence American politics, with more of a willingness to target specific candidates.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un looks on as he guides a training of the fire division in this picture released on March 19. Pyongyang has spent decades stockpiling millions of rounds of artillery and thousands of rockets in the terrain north of the demilitarized zone, which sits some 40 kilometers away from Seoul.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 3, 2024

Kim Jong Un faces annihilation in nearly all Korea war scenarios

Although North Korea has a manpower advantage, the bulk of its forces rely on "increasingly obsolete equipment” dating back to Soviet era.
Hakuoho (right) shoves out Aoiyama during the Nagoya Basho in July last year. The promising young wrestler is now part of Terunofuji's Isegahama stable after the Miyagino stable was forced to close following a bullying scandal.
SUMO / INSIDE SUMO
Apr 3, 2024

With absorption of Miyagino stable, Isegahama looks to be building sumo super team

Whether it’s Real Madrid’s famous Galacticos or the 2024 Dodgers, few things in sport divides opinion among fans more than the creation of a super team.
The surprising election losses by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party to candidates of the Republican People's Party are signs of hope for democracy and secularism in the country.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 2, 2024

Turkey’s Erdogan is down, but don’t count him out

The election upset of President Erdogan’s AKP Party is just the start in a long fight for liberal democracy.
Shohei Ohtani's response, or lack thereof, to the gambling scandal sheds light on the cultural differences in crisis management between Japan and the West.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 2, 2024

Ohtani swings and misses at PR, but he’s not Japan’s first

Shohei Ohtani's response, or lack thereof, to a gambling scandal sheds light on the cultural differences in crisis management between Japan and the West.
Recent research suggests that within developed countries, the old positive relationship between status and fertility is re-emerging.
COMMENTARY
Apr 3, 2024

The wealthy are starting to have more babies than the poor again

After a century during which higher income and status meant fewer children, the current trend is potentially a momentous change.
Climate change, with its natural disasters, is putting nuclear facilities and weapons complexes at risk.
COMMENTARY
Apr 4, 2024

Climate change and nuclear waste are a toxic stew

Nuclear power could be a crucial part of a clean-energy transition, but not if it comes with a high risk of multiple Fukushima-like catastrophes.
Lawyers representing families of former leprosy patients seeking damages from the state hold up signs in front of the Kumamoto District Court in June 2019 after winning the case.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 5, 2024

35% in Japan prejudiced against ex-leprosy patients: survey

The health ministry will consider necessary measures given the survey results.
Dogs are long-lived enough to serve as better models for human aging than mice, but short-lived enough that aging treatments can be tested in just a few years.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 5, 2024

Your dog will have an anti-aging drug before you do

Dogs are long-lived enough to serve as better models for human aging than mice, but short-lived enough that aging treatments can be tested in a few years.
China’s greenhouse footprint can be boiled down to three factors: its economic growth, the energy intensity of that growth and the carbon intensity of that energy.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 7, 2024

China’s growth ambitions will erase the world’s climate gains

Global greenhouse pollution hit a record and increased 1.1% last year, the International Energy Agency reported. That was almost entirely a China story.
U.S. President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and British leader Rishi Sunak deliver remarks on the AUKUS partnership, after a trilateral meeting, at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego in March last year.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 7, 2024

AUKUS weighs expanding security pact to deter China, report says

Rahm Emanuel, the outspoken U.S. ambassador in Tokyo, wrote in a recent commentary that Japan was "about to become the first additional Pillar II partner."
Taiwan Air Force members at the Pingtung air base in Pingtung, Taiwan, on Jan. 30. Taiwan's president has promised to stick to the status quo concerning the island’s relations with China.
COMMENTARY / World / Geoeconomic Briefing
Apr 9, 2024

How to stop the dominoes of war from falling in East Asia

Conflicts elsewhere have implications for East Asia's powder kegs — the Taiwan Strait and the Korean Peninsula.
Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen celebrates winning the Formula One Japanese Grand Prix race at the Suzuka circuit in Suzuka, Mie Prefecture, on Sunday.
MORE SPORTS / Auto Racing
Apr 8, 2024

Verstappen questions wisdom of sprint race on China return

The Chinese Grand Prix will include the first of six sprint rounds this season.
With the resignation of Shizuoka Gov. Heita Kawakatsu, a major hurdle may have been removed in the construction of the maglev high-speed train, which is expected to connect Tokyo to Osaka in just over 60 minutes.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 5, 2024

Maglev train is back on track after Shizuoka governor's derailing

Shizuoka's governor was blocking the construction of Japan's maglev bullet train. Now that he has resigned, the project can finally move at full speed.
Miyagi Gov. Yoshihiro Murai speaks at a a news conference in Sendai on Monday.
JAPAN
Apr 9, 2024

Miyagi governor suggests scrapping national sports event

The annual event is hosted in rotation by the 47 prefectures.
Vladimir Putin knows that if NATO member states are dragged back into policing a restive Balkans, they will be distracted from their focus on supporting Ukraine.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 2, 2024

Putin’s new front in the Ukraine war is in the Balkans

The Russian leader is pushing propaganda and religious strife in Kosovo and Bosnia to distract NATO from his illegal invasion.
Protesters take part in a small rally led by Women's March Tucson after Arizona's Supreme Court revived a law dating to 1864 that bans abortion in virtually all instances, in Tucson, Arizona, on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 10, 2024

Arizona's top court revives 19th century abortion ban

States were given the go-ahead to adopt such bans after the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling.
U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron
WORLD / Politics
Apr 10, 2024

Cameron lobbies old adversary Trump to unlock Ukraine aid

Despite sparring in the past, the U.K.'s foreign secretary sees the former U.S. president as key to giving Ukraine more funding.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets supporters during his roadshow ahead of the general elections, in Ghaziabad, India, on April 6.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 11, 2024

He once sold tea, but now India's Modi seeks his own 'tryst with destiny'

Modi has lofty ambitions for what could be his third and final term in office.
A Wisconsin resident prepares to vote in the presidential primary election in Superior, Wisconsin, on April 2.
COMMENTARY / World / Geoeconomic Briefing
Apr 16, 2024

Can we trust the polls? How emerging technologies affect democracy

In a global election year, all eyes are on the ties between emerging technologies and democracy.
U.S. President Joe Biden welcomes Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during an arrival ceremony at the White House on Wednesday. The two leaders are also meeting with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, where defense ties between the three nations were set to be high on the agenda. 
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 11, 2024

Hail to the minilateral chiefs: Biden, Kishida and Marcos

This week the U.S. keeps building NATO 2.0 in the Indo-Pacific, even as it prepares to improve NATO 1.0 in July.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?