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Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Mar 29, 2013

2013 Pacific League Preview

Final installment of a two-part 2013 NPB Preview.
U.K. university tuition fees for domestic students are set to rise for the first time in seven years due to a financial crisis in higher education.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 4, 2024

Britons don't pay enough to go to university

U.K. university tuition fees for domestic students are set to rise for the first time in seven years due to a financial crisis in higher education.
An activist in Seoul protests Japan’s plan to release treated wastewater from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
PODCAST / deep dive
Sep 7, 2023

Anger at Fukushima’s wastewater; hope in its renewables

Good news and bad news out of Fukushima.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 2, 2024

Who might succeed Fumio Kishida in 2024?

Several names have emerged as potential candidates for prime minister in the wake of a political funds scandal enveloping the LDP.
Military vehicles carrying intercontinental ballistic missiles during a military parade in Beijing in 2019
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 5, 2024

Fear and ambition propel Xi’s nuclear acceleration

As China’s arsenal grows, its military looks to warheads as both defensive shield and potential sword — to intimidate and subjugate adversaries.
JAPAN
Mar 7, 2024

Prominent Japanese political scientist Makoto Iokibe dies at 80

He is renowned for his research on Japan's relations with the United States during postwar U.S. occupation.
People take selfies at a pop-up shop for the Japanese volleyball manga series "Haikyu!!" in Tokyo on April 19. Men's volleyball is flying high in Japan with the national team ranked fourth globally ahead of the Paris Olympics.
CULTURE / Books
May 22, 2024

'Haikyu!!': Comic heroes fuel Olympic volleyball manga mania in Japan

"Haikyu!!" has sold 60 million copies since its 2012 inception, and has been turned into an anime series and a film.
Al Shifa Hospital after Israeli forces withdrew from the hospital and the area around it following a two-week operation, in Gaza City on April 2
WORLD
Jun 5, 2024

Gaza's doctors were building a health care system. Then came war.

Before the war, specialist doctors were part of a strategic effort by Hamas to build a self-sufficient health care system for Gaza.
Rim Nakamura, who is attempting to win Japan's first Olympic gold medal in cycling, will be one of the top Japanese athletes to watch at the Paris Games.
OLYMPICS
Jul 26, 2024

The Japanese Olympians looking to shine in Paris

Team Japan is looking to build on the momentum from three years ago in Tokyo, where the nation earned a record medal haul.
China's Chang Yuan reacts after she beat Turkey's Hatice Akbas in the women's 54-kg gold-medal bout at the Paris Olympics on Thursday.
OLYMPICS / Boxing
Aug 11, 2024

China's female boxers break through to reign at Paris Olympics

Women's boxing made its Olympic debut in 2012 and after some near-misses, China struck gold this past week with three titles in as many days at Roland Garros.
Bidzina Ivanishvili, former prime minister and founder of the Georgian Dream party, waves during a pro-government rally in support of a bill regarding "foreign agents" in Tbilisi, Georgia, on April 29.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 22, 2024

Georgia's shark-owning billionaire tells voters: Don't risk war with Russia

Memories are fresh of a 2008 war with Russia over the Moscow-backed breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which lasted five days and ended in Georgia's defeat.
Wang Huning, Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, attends a high-level meeting on industrialization and agricultural modernization with African leaders at the National Convention Center in Beijing on Sept. 5.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 26, 2024

The man who shaped China’s strongman rule has a new job: winning Taiwan

Xi Jinping’s top adviser, Wang Huning, is credited with shaping the authoritarianism that steered China’s rise. But can he influence Taiwan?
French Prime Minister Michel Barnier reacts after the result of the no-confidence vote on his administration at the National Assembly in Paris on Wednesday. French lawmakers ousted his government after just three months in office.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 6, 2024

This is not France's 'Truss moment'

While the political instability and economic challenges are worrying, France is not facing a full-blown financial crisis.
SOCCER / Women's World cup
Jul 21, 2023

Nadeshiko Japan's Women's World Cup glory now distant memory

Japan begins its latest World Cup campaign against Zambia on Saturday, but is ranked 11th now and no longer among the favorites.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walks in front of an intercontinental ballistic missile in this undated photo released in March 2022.
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 25, 2023

From 'Young General' to 'Supreme Leader': The evolution of Kim Jong Un

North Korea's thinking on its relations with the U.S. has undergone dramatic changes, and Kim Jong Un's past evolution offers indications of where the country might be headed.
The U.S. Capitol in Washington. After its downgrade of the U.S., Fitch’s AAA club now consists of Germany and Australia, along with seven others, including smaller, rich countries such as Switzerland and Luxembourg.
BUSINESS
Aug 4, 2023

Pristine AAA bond universe just got a whole lot smaller

Fitch's U.S. downgrade is the latest example of a decadelong trend in rich economies as worries about high and rising debt burdens come to the fore.
The Eiffel Tower in Paris will be used as a venue for five-a-side football during the 2024 Paris Paralympics.
PARALYMPICS
Aug 28, 2023

Paris 2024 eyes sell-out Paralympics crowds to beat London record, IPC says

Tickets for the Paralympics, to be held between Aug. 28 and Sept. 8, weeks after the Olympics in the French capital, go on sale on Oct. 9.
LeBron James last represented Team USA at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, where he won his second gold medal.
BASKETBALL / NBA
Sep 12, 2023

Reports: LeBron James and Steph Curry among NBA stars eyeing Paris Games

The Lakers veteran led the U.S. to Olympic gold in 2008 at Beijing and 2012 at London but has not played since.
New Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa is seen in formal attire to attend an attestation ceremony after a Cabinet reshuffle in Tokyo on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 13, 2023

In Kishida's Cabinet reshuffle, two changes stand out

It will be the first time in 20 years that a woman has been foreign minister, while the new defense chief arrives amid dramatic shifts in defense posture.
The incoming and outgoing presidents of Johnny & Associates, Noriyuki Higashiyama and Julie Keiko Fujishima, bow at a press conference on Sept. 7.
PODCAST / deep dive
Sep 14, 2023

Johnny’s talent agency has admitted to a past of abuse. What next?

Karin Kaneko joins the show to update us on how the story is unfolding.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. leaves a meeting in Jakarta on Sept. 7.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Sep 28, 2023

Marcos' challenge of China pressures U.S.

There are questions about how far Manila is willing to go and whether the U.S. would really have its back if the situation escalates.
A man walks toward Sankore mosque, also known as the former University of Sankore, in Timbuktu, Mali
WORLD / Politics
Oct 3, 2023

Mali in meltdown as militants advance and U.N. withdraws

The violence risks adding instability to a region already reeling from military coups in neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / Sac Bunts
Oct 5, 2023

Giants prepare to start new era as manager Tatsunori Hara walks away

Manager Tatsunori Hara's departure closes the book on an eventful chapter in the storied history of the Giants.
Sebastian Coe speaks at a news conference during an International Olympic Committee session in Mumbai on Saturday.
OLYMPICS
Oct 15, 2023

Sebastian Coe says IOC made 'only decision' in banning Russia

The IOC's move came after the Russian Olympic Committee recognized regional organizations from four annexed Ukrainian territories.
U.S. President Barack Obama meets with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the White House on Sept. 25, 2015. Speeches by the Chinese leader show how he was bracing for an intensifying rivalry with the United States from early in his rule.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Nov 14, 2023

Behind public assurances, Xi Jinping spreads grim views on U.S.

Speeches by the Chinese leader show how he was bracing for an intensifying rivalry with the United States from early in his rule.
Ichiro Ozawa (third from right) with other members of parliament at a ceremony to launch a new party in Tokyo in July 2012.
JAPAN / Politics
Nov 15, 2023

Ichiro Ozawa is once again looking for a way to defeat the LDP

The octogenarian political veteran is looking to cap his long career with another successful drive to defeat the ruling LDP at the polls.
Helping Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s political fortunes is the Liberal Democratic Party’s inability to agree on a successor.
EDITORIALS
Nov 24, 2023

Kishida is in trouble, but he’ll survive — for now

A Jiji Press survey released earlier this month put the Kishida Cabinet's approval at 21.3%, the lowest level since his inauguration in 2021.
A girl walks among bags and mattresses as Eastern European migrants wait to temporarily settle in a locale in Decines, France, in 2015. Some of the world's richest countries saw a sharp rise in child poverty from 2014 to 2021, according to a UNICEF report.
WORLD / Society
Dec 6, 2023

1 in 5 children in rich countries lives in poverty, UNICEF says

Report shows that the biggest setbacks since 2012 were in some of the wealthier nations, including Britain and France where rates increased.
Workers plow a field at the site of an economic land concession outside Praeus K'ak village in Cambodia's Preah Vihear province on Dec. 6.
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 24, 2023

'Doom for forests': Fears over new Cambodia land grants

Thousands are affected by economic land concessions (ELCs) — land grants to businesses that experts say have driven deforestation and dispossession.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 26, 2023

Has the funding scandal doomed the Abe faction?

With criminal investigations under way, there is impetus for the younger generation of the Abe faction members to break away and form a rebranded group.

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