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Get the rubber gloves and cleaning supplies out. This is the time of year when we should clean our homes and prepare them for the upcoming rainy season.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Apr 11, 2024

Dust off your tidying vocabulary with a refreshing spring clean

While most Japanese households take part in a big clean at the end of the year, it doesn't hurt to tidy a little as the weather changes.
Jimmy Lai leaves a police station in Hong Kong in 2020.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 11, 2024

Hong Kong refuses entry to Reporters Without Borders staffer

Hong Kong is currently ranked 140 out of 180 on the 2023 World Press Freedom Index.
Yayoi Kusama during a media preview of her exhibition at the David Zwirner gallery in New York in November 2013.
CULTURE / Art
Apr 11, 2024

Yayoi Kusama was the world’s top-selling artist last year

Sales from Kusama’s auctioned works totaled $80.9 million in 2023, moving her up from the second-highest selling artist in 2022.
U.S. Steel's Edgar Thomson steel mill in Braddock, Pennsylvania
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 11, 2024

How the U.S. Steel takeover became about Biden and swing states

The turmoil threatens to strain U.S. relations with Japan while underscoring how the politics of winning swing-state voters influences business.
The assembly line at the Volkswagen factory in Zwickau, Germany, on March 14. The factory stopped producing gasoline-powered Golfs and switched to electric vehicles, illuminating the risks and opportunities for factory towns and cities.
BUSINESS / Tech
Apr 11, 2024

What happened when a German car factory went all electric?

The city of Zwickau, where more than 10,000 people work for Volkswagen and tens of thousands more for suppliers, seems to have avoided dire consequences.
The creator of "hanetsuki gyōza" is Isao Yagi, and his restaurant, Nihao, can be found right on the border of Tokyo and Kawasaki in Ota Ward.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 14, 2024

How ‘winged’ gyōza took flight from a Tokyo suburb

I mistakenly thought these crispy delights had been around for as long as “gyōza” themselves, but their creator is alive and cooking today.
A brine pool at an SQM lithium mine on the Atacama salt flat in the Atacama Desert, Chile. The industry that deals with one of the world’s most important commodities is asking whether it's doomed to repeat a boom and bust cycle again and again.
BUSINESS / Markets
Apr 12, 2024

Lithium industry braces for long-term oversupply after price instability

Those involved with the commodity are asking whether they're doomed to repeat a boom and bust cycle again and again.
A guest room at the Muji Hotel Ginza. Ryohin Keikaku, the brand’s parent company, now has a new business called Muji Stay, which brings under one umbrella the retailer’s existing hotels, homes and camps.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 12, 2024

Japan’s Muji bets minimalist retail will work for homes and hotels

Muji currently has three hotels — one in Ginza, one in Beijing and one in Shenzhen, with rooms often booked out months in advance
“Butter” author Asako Yuzuki was inspired by the real-life story of Kanae Kijima, who was nicknamed the “Black Widow” and the “Konkatsu Killer” by the media for killing three men she dated to maintain her luxurious lifestyle of gourmet meals and a high-end cooking school.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 12, 2024

Asako Yuzuki's 'Butter' is a heady serving of food culture and feminism

The author's foodie femme fatale character was inspired by a real-life "black widow" case that caught the public's attention in 2009.
A funeral procession in Tehran for seven Iranian military commanders killed by an Israeli airstrike in Syria, on April 5. American intelligence analysts and officials said Friday that they expected Iran to strike multiple targets inside Israel within the next few days in retaliation for an Israeli bombing in the Syrian capital on April 1 that killed several senior Iranian commanders.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 13, 2024

U.S. targets unlikely to be on list in possible Iranian attack, officials say

In anticipation of the strikes, several countries have issued new guidelines to their citizens about travel in Israel and the surrounding region.
O.J. Simpson listens to the not guilty verdict after his murder trial with his attorneys F. Lee Bailey (left) and Johnnie Cochran Jr. (right) in Los Angeles in October 1995.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Apr 14, 2024

What happened to damages that O.J. Simpson owed to the victims’ families?

Simpson was acquitted of the murders of Brown Simpson and Goldman in a 1995 criminal trial, but a civil jury later concluded that he caused their deaths.
A man sits in an inflatable boat in a flooded residential area in Orsk, in the Orenburg region of Russia, on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 15, 2024

Russians mourn flooded homes as Russia's Ural flooding crisis deepens

The emergency situations ministry said Sunday that nearly 4,000 houses and blocks of flats in the city of Orenburg had been flooded.
Residents of Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, collect supplies in the aftermath of the Jan. 1 earthquake. When it comes to preparing for and responding to disasters in Japan, the specific needs of women are still not being sufficiently met. One way to fix this would be to increase the number of women involved in the area of disaster prevention.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 15, 2024

Women’s needs in disasters are still not accounted for

In Japan, women's needs in disaster situations are not being sufficiently met, as the Ishikawa earthquake shows, partly due to poor female representation.
A drone view shows a flooded area around the Dubki residential complex in Orenburg, Russia, on Friday.
WORLD
Apr 17, 2024

Russia and Kazakhstan fight floods as Putin ally criticizes response

Kazakhstan and Russia are dealing with cities under water as Russia's security council secretary criticizes local officials for not being better prepared.
"Great Japan History Briefing Session, the 15th Empress Jingu." Expedition in Korea. The legendary Empress Jingu setting foot in Korea. Painting by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi in 1880.
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
Apr 18, 2024

What would Sigmund Freud have thought of Japan’s largely peaceful history?

In an exchange of letters, Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud discussed human nature when it comes to why people go to war. How does Japan fit in?
Jamoliddin Makhmaliyev sits with his grandson and granddaughters in front of his new house in the village of Khuroson, some 70 kilometers south of the Tajikistan capital Dushanbe, on March 26. “We lived in fear, until the day the mountain collapsed and destroyed our house,” recalls his wife Yodgoroy. Tajikistan is the Central Asian country most vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Apr 17, 2024

Tajikistan builds villages for climate migrants fleeing fatal landslides

The former Soviet country says it relocated 45,000 people between 2000 and 2017, and that tens of thousands of others are waiting their turn.
Marinos' Jun Amano (left) and Ulsan's Joo Min-kyu fight for the ball during the AFC Champions League semifinal first leg soccer match between Ulsan Hyundai FC and Yokohama F. Marinos in Ulsan, South Korea, on Wednesday.
SOCCER
Apr 17, 2024

Ulsan edges Yokohama in Asian Champions League semifinal opener

The victory has clinched Ulsan's place at next year's Club World Cup.
The main goal of Australian's new defense strategy is to change a potential adversary’s belief that it could achieve its ambitions with military force at an acceptable cost.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / ANALYSIS
Apr 19, 2024

Australia, like Japan, sees national security interests ‘farther afield’

The goal of Australia's new strategy is to change a potential adversary’s belief that it could achieve its ambitions with force at an acceptable cost.
If all you drink is Asahi, Sapporo and Kirin, you're depriving yourself of some of the best craft beer Tokyo has to offer — and there sure is a lot of it out there.
LIFE / Food & Drink / Top 5
Apr 21, 2024

A craft beer crawl through Tokyo’s top bars, brewpubs and dives

From microbreweries to tiny pubs stocking umpteen bottled choices, Tokyo is now more than ever a beer lover’s dream.
The United Arab Emirates was battered on Tuesday by its heaviest downpour since records began in 1949.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Apr 20, 2024

Dubai floods expose weaknesses to a rapidly changing climate

The United Arab Emirates was battered this week by its heaviest downpour since records began in 1949.
Sunrockers fans at a game in Tokyo in March.
BASKETBALL / B. League
Apr 20, 2024

'Mr. Incredible' and Japan’s improbable bid to compete with the NBA

Japan is a latecomer to basketball’s global expansion, but it has stratospheric expectations for its future.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's use of divisive language himself raised alarm that it could inflame right-wing vigilantes who target Muslims, and brought up questions about what had prompted his shift in communication style.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 23, 2024

Modi calls Muslims ‘infiltrators’ who would take India’s wealth

The language was unusually direct for a leader who normally lets others do the dirtiest work of polarizing Hindus against Muslims.
An employee prepares to place a mortar into a box at an arms production facility in an undisclosed location in Ukraine.
BUSINESS / Companies / FOCUS
Apr 23, 2024

Cash shortages and attacks take toll on Ukraine's growing arms sector

Firms are struggling to fund production and secure long-term deals, and all are concerned about being targeted in intensifying Russian missile strikes.
A man offers flowers in Shari, Hokkaido, Tuesday for the victims of the fatal sinking of a sightseeing boat off the Shiretoko Peninsula in Hokkaido two years ago.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 24, 2024

Hokkaido boat operator probe ongoing two years after fatal sinking

Thirty relatives of passengers plan to file a group lawsuit against the operator's president at the Sapporo District Court as early as next month.
Shohei Ohtani has been overwhelmingly voted as the “dream boss” for people who started working in April, according to a survey.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 24, 2024

New workers name Shohei Ohtani as 'dream boss' for two years running

Announcer Asami Miura and 16th-century warlord Oda Nobunaga also featured in a survey on ideal bosses in the entertainment, sports and historical spheres.
Delegates meet for the Development Committee Plenary during the World Bank and IMF 2024 Spring Meetings in Washington on Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2024

Negotiating a bigger, better World Bank

Recent changes at the global lender are important steps toward making the World Bank’s financial model fit for “ending poverty on a livable planet.”
When chef Ryohei Ikemi moved to Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, and opened Casa del Cibo in 2011, it was the first proper Italian restaurant in the city.
LIFE / Food & Drink / Destination Restaurants
Apr 26, 2024

Casa del Cibo: A thriving jewel born from Tohoku’s harsh past

Chef Ryohei Ikemi will open dinner with a warming soup featuring vegetables from Aomori's Lake Towada and close with a local Kyogoku apple gelato.
Vendors wearing headwear for protection against the sun talk amid the heat in Manila on Friday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Apr 28, 2024

Philippines suspends in-person classes due to heat and jeepney strike

The temperature in the city hit a record high of 38.8 degrees Celsius (101.8 degrees Fahrenheit) on Saturday with the heat index reaching 45 C.
When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Apr 29, 2024

Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree

Among official records in Japan, the "koseki" is key to discovering where you came from. However, it's not without controversy.
(From left) Nanami Fukuoka, Natsumi Matsunaga and Riana Tashima, students from Denshukan High School in Yanagawa, Fukuoka Prefecture, and Mutsumi Machitori, their teacher, show their research in late March.
JAPAN / History / Regional Voices: Kyushu
May 6, 2024

Students in Fukuoka learn of school's tragic past in World War II

After investigating a cenotaph at their school, pupils researched 17 alumni who died at a nearby munitions factory.

Longform

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