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Cirebon-1, an 11-year-old coal power station in West Java, Indonesia, is set to close early, sparing the planet millions of tons of carbon dioxide.
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 16, 2023

Indonesian facility shows cutting coal is a hard sell for banks

The early closure of the Cirebon-1 coal plant could be a decarbonization model for Asia, but big banks have been shy about fueling the transition.
The U.S. has 8,000 km of carbon dioxide pipelines, but will need at least 50,000 to hit climate goals, according to a carbon transport engineer at the U.S. Department of Energy.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Aug 21, 2023

U.S. Midwest is ground zero in the fight over carbon capture

The U.S. wants to greatly expand carbon capture and storage infrastructure, including pipelines, but many projects face opposition in the Midwest.
Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra waves after arriving at Don Mueang airport in Bangkok on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 22, 2023

Thailand's Thaksin returns to jail after years in exile

Thaksin, who was found guilty in absentia in four corruption cases and still faces 10 years in prison, was taken into custody by the police.
The 3M global headquarters in Maplewood, Minnesota. The multinational conglomerate has tentatively agreed to pay more than $5.5 billion to resolve over 300,000 lawsuits claiming it sold the U.S. military defective combat earplugs.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 29, 2023

3M to pay more than $5.5 billion over faulty combat earplugs

Current and former service members allege 3M knew its earplugs were too short to work effectively and that it failed to warn the U.S. government or users.
The trend of people getting married later could be causing a vicious cycle of fewer children begetting fewer children, says Takuya Hoshino, senior economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 30, 2023

Third of Japan's 18-year-old women may never have children: study

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has promised to tackle the country's population crisis with "unprecedented" measures.
Taliban security personnel in Kabul on Aug. 15. So far, U.S. President Joe Biden has not decided to restore any U.S. support to Afghanistan, despite the country's worsening humanitarian crisis.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 31, 2023

Two years after exit, Biden resists calls for more Taliban contact

Some analysts and U.S. officials had clung to the hope that the Taliban had moderated since they last controlled Afghanistan in the 1990s.
Rough guidelines on gifting cash at a Japanese wedding recommended between ¥10,000 and ¥50,000, depending on your own financial standing and your relationship to the married couple.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Sep 2, 2023

The unwritten rules around cash at Asian weddings

Should a gift reflect the cost of your banquet meal? How do you put a numerical value on a friendship?
An air raid shelter converted into luxury apartments at Ungererstrasse 158 in Munich, Germany
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
Sep 4, 2023

Market flop: How Germany's property boom ended

The country's property sector in Europe's largest economy is suffering its worst slump in decades.
SUMO / Inside Sumo
Sep 6, 2023

Power of ozeki trio on display in muted return of open practice session

The first Yokozuna Deliberation Council sōken training session open to the public in four years has taken place at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo.
Actor Nahana says she considers her role as a punk rocker who falls in love with an avenging hero in Takahisa Zeze’s four-hour epic “Heaven’s Story” a turning point in her career.
CULTURE / Film
Sep 6, 2023

Indie film royalty Nahana looks back on 22 years

The Cinema Novecento theater in Yokohama is set to screen 12 of the versatile actor's films as a tribute to her long career.
Kohei Saito, a philosophy professor at the University of Tokyo who appears regularly in Japanese media to discuss his ideas, at home in Tokyo on March 16.
JAPAN / Society
Sep 7, 2023

Can shrinking be good for Japan? A Marxist bestseller makes the case.

Saito has tapped into what he describes as a growing disillusionment in Japan with capitalism’s ability to solve the problems people see around them.
The All Blacks perform the haka in front of Scotland before their match in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Nov. 13, 2022.
MORE SPORTS / Rugby
Sep 7, 2023

All Blacks prepared to unleash haka at Rugby World Cup

The haka is a fierce war dance that was originally used to prepare Maori warriors for battle and has since been adopted by the All Blacks.
A man stands next to a damaged car in Derna, after a powerful storm and heavy rainfall hit Libya on Tuesday.
WORLD / Society
Sep 13, 2023

Over 5,000 dead in Libya as dam collapses worsen flood disaster

Libya, a North African nation splintered by a war, was ill-prepared for the storm, which swept across the Mediterranean Sea to batter its coastline.
JAPAN / Politics / Notebook
Sep 13, 2023

What Kishida’s reshuffle says about female participation in politics

Political family ties of most of the female appointees speaks to the difficulty women face in entering the political arena.
Mia Lee Sorensen with her Danish mother, Lilian Hansen, 72, and father, Bent Hansen, 74, on the coast of Korsor, Denmark, on July 13. South Korean adoptees have been returning to the country to hold the government accountable for what they call a corrupt and predatory adoption system.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Sep 18, 2023

World’s largest ‘baby exporter’ confronts its painful past

South Korean adoptees have been returning to the country to hold the government accountable for what they call a corrupt adoption system.
Identifying a sustainable product can involve evaluating claims about emissions, plastic use, water waste and packaging recyclability.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Sep 19, 2023

Regulators are trying to stop greenwashing before it gets worse

The range of agencies tackling dubious sustainability claims is indicative of its ambiguity and breadth.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen
WORLD / Politics
Sep 20, 2023

Janet Yellen defends climate progress as critics push harder

The U.S. Treasury chief has made climate change a top priority. For some that’s a great relief. For others, it’s a distinction that’s too easy to claim.
Women with portable electric fans in the Yurakucho district of Tokyo on Sept. 12. In Japan, Cool Biz became especially popular with women, who tended to wear lighter clothes and often complained about the cold temperatures needed to make business suits comfortable for their male colleagues.
JAPAN / Society
Sep 24, 2023

Where did all the dark-suited Japanese businessmen go?

Under Cool Biz, salarymen and government workers don short-sleeved shirts in the summer as offices are kept above 28 degrees Celsius to save energy.
If you've ever dined on fresh fish, either within Japan or anywhere else in the world, there's a healthy chance it was processed via ikejime, a Japanese technique for preserving freshness in line-caught fish.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Sep 30, 2023

How the world got hooked on ikejime-caught fish

Roughly rendered in English as “locking in life,” this technique delivers a quick death to ensure freshness.
A screen at the Karolinska Institute shows this year's laureates Katalin Kariko of Hungary (left) and Drew Weissman of the U.S. during the announcement of the winners of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 2, 2023

Pair win medicine Nobel for work related to COVID-19 vaccines

Their findings "fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system," the Nobel committee said.
Katalin Kariko (right) and Drew Weissman, the winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their discoveries enabling the development of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2023

Nobel for mRNA vaccines shows the power of perseverance

Decades of work by Nobel Prize winners Kariko and Weissman made the rapid development of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines possible.
Max Verstappen (right) celebrates with Red Bull's team principal, Christian Horner, after the Dutch star won the Japanese Grand Prix on Sept. 24 to clinch the constructors' title for the team.
MORE SPORTS / Auto Racing
Oct 6, 2023

Lewis Hamilton says 'phenomenal' Max Verstappen raised bar in F1

Verstappen needs just three points to secure another F1 title.
BUSINESS
Oct 8, 2023

Australia vows stable energy exports to Japan amid emissions cut

Australia has worked to strengthen its policies to tackle climate change, including mandating emissions cuts of 43% from 2005 levels by 2030.
Houses and buildings destroyed by Israeli strikes in Gaza City, on Tuesday
WORLD / Politics
Oct 10, 2023

Israel pounds Gaza with fiercest airstrikes ever

Israel pounded the Gaza Strip with the fiercest airstrikes in the 75-year history of its conflict with the Palestinians, razing whole districts to dust.
A group of Chinese tourists arrive at Haneda Airport in Tokyo in August.
JAPAN / Society
Oct 11, 2023

Japan public opinion turns most negative on China in nine years

More than 92% of respondents to the Japanese section of the poll said their impression of China was "not good,” up from 87% last year.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Arab leaders pose for a group photo during the China-Arab summit in Riyadh on Dec. 9.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 12, 2023

China’s economic stake in the Middle East: Its thirst for oil

China, the world’s second-largest economy, has become addicted to foreign oil at a stunning pace.
A Palestinian fighter from the armed wing of Hamas takes part in a military parade to mark the anniversary of the 2014 war with Israel, near the border in the central Gaza Strip, in July.
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Oct 14, 2023

How Hamas secretly built a 'mini-army' to fight Israel

The group has a military academy training a range of specializations and boasts a naval commando unit among its 40,000-strong military wing.
New Zealand's National Party leader Christopher Luxon addresses his supporters in Auckland after winning the general election on Saturday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 15, 2023

New Zealand elects its most conservative government in decades

Former Air New Zealand CEO Christopher Luxon's center-right National Party will lead a coalition with a smaller libertarian party.
The Iriomote cat, native to the island of the same name in Okinawa Prefecture, is remarkable for its resilience: It occupies the smallest habitat of any wildcat on Earth.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife / OUR PLANET
Oct 15, 2023

The last of Japan's wildcats

Only about 100 animals of each species survive today, putting both on the brink of extinction along with more than 3,700 other species nationwide.
Israeli soldiers load tank shells as their unit masses in Be'eri, near the border with the Gaza Strip, on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 15, 2023

Israel plans Gaza invasion to avenge Hamas atrocities

The assault is expected to be Israel’s biggest ground operation since it invaded Lebanon in 2006.

Longform

Visitors to Kyoto walk along a street near Kiyomizu Temple in April. A popular tourist spot, Kyoto has seen what locals feel to be an overwhelming amount of tourists in 2024.
Is Japan ready for 60 million tourists?