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A man uses a sheet of cardboard to shade from the sun during high temperatures in Bangkok on April 28. Thailand has been bracing for hotter-than-normal days due to the El Nino weather pattern that’s forecast to last until June.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
May 15, 2024

Asia’s killer April heat wave was made much worse by climate change

In countries such as Palestine and Israel, climate change made the heat wave five times more likely than it would have been in pre-industrial times.
An advisory panel to the education ministry will consider how the Japanese language should be transcribed into the Latin alphabet, including unifying different romanization styles currently in use.
JAPAN
May 15, 2024

Japan to review romanization system for first time in 70 years

The review is due to be submitted as early as next spring.
Taiwan President-elect Lai Ching-te arrives at the CyberSec 2024 Exhibition in Taipei on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / ANALYSIS
May 15, 2024

New Taiwan president to set tone for ties with China at inauguration

President-elect Lai Ching-te will have the world's attention when he delivers his inaugural address on Monday.
A pro-Palestinian supporter in Tokyo takes part in a protest against Israeli attacks on Gaza. Japanese universities are also experiencing their share of pro-Palestinian student demonstrations similar to those elsewhere in the world.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 15, 2024

What the campus Gaza protests lack — in Japan, too

Students are right to be distressed over the suffering of Palestinians. But are they applying cognitive empathy to understand the other side, too?
Tesla's charging network is widely viewed as a signature achievement for the EV maker and a key driver of its sales. Tesla Superchargers account for more than 60% of U.S. high-speed charging ports, federal statistics show.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 16, 2024

The inside story of Elon Musk’s mass firings of Tesla Supercharger staff

Former charging chief met Musk expecting the go-ahead for a massive expansion of the charging network, but ended up getting fired along with her 500-member team.
Author Yukio Mishima accepts the Arts Festival Award in the drama category at the 20th Arts Festival Award Ceremony on Jan. 22, 1966.
LIFE / Bilingual
May 16, 2024

Unraveling the Japanese prose of Yukio Mishima

Achieving success at a young age, Yukio Mishima's creative use of compound verbs and kanji stand out in his writing.
Ships are seen near a temporary floating pier built to receive humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip in Gaza Beach in this image release on Saturday.
WORLD
May 18, 2024

Fierce fighting in northern Gaza as aid starts to roll off U.S.-built pier

As the fighting raged, the U.S. military said trucks started moving aid ashore from a temporary pier, the first to reach the besieged enclave by sea in weeks.
Ukrainian servicemen of the 148th Separate Artillery Brigade of the Ukrainian Air Assault Forces, fire a M777 howitzer toward Russian troops near a front line, in Ukraine's Donetsk region on May 1.
WORLD / FOCUS
May 19, 2024

Ukraine struggles to hold eastern front as Russians advance on cities

The drive has marked an inflection point in the conflict spawned by Russia's full-scale invasion more than two years ago.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk and Indonesia's health minister, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, inaugurate the launch of the Starlink internet service in Bali's capital of Denpasar on Sunday.
ASIA PACIFIC
May 19, 2024

Tycoon Musk launches Starlink in Indonesia

Millions of people in Indonesia, a vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, are not currently hooked up to reliable internet services.
Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov attends a meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin with commanders of troops of military districts, in Moscow on May 15.
WORLD / Politics
May 20, 2024

The technocrat who’s taking control of Putin’s war effort

While other technocrats in Russian President Vladimir Putin's orbit privately see his geopolitical moves as problematic, the new defense minister is a true believer.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin (left) and then-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in the Kremlin on May 7. While President Vladimir Putin has no real challengers, powerful actors within his government are vying against each other.
COMMENTARY / World
May 16, 2024

The battle of ministries in Putin’s Russia

Historical parallels suggest that Putin’s top-down approach, like Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization and Gorbachev’s perestroika, risks sparking opposition by causing intra-elite infighting.
The main targets of a new bill on smartphone software are the app stores provided by Google and Apple, as consumers effectively have only two choices for smartphone operating systems: Apple's iOS or Google’s Android.
BUSINESS / Tech
May 22, 2024

Japan aims to curb Apple and Google's smartphone app duopoly

A new bill would compel dominant platforms to allow third parties to launch their own app markets and to offer more payment options.
A Chinese military ship northwest of Pengjia Island, off the coast of northern Taiwan, on Thursday
ASIA PACIFIC
May 23, 2024

China's military kicks off large-scale 'punishment' drills around Taiwan

The large-scale joint military exercises come days after the self-ruled island’s new president was sworn into office.
A portrait of North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un is displayed at a national meeting to commemorate Kim's 10-year anniversary as head of the country's ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) in Pyongyang on April 10, 2022.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 23, 2024

Kim Jong Un’s portrait elevated to big three in personality cult

Also spotted at a new training school were rare portraits of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith delivers a speech at the French Microsoft headquarters in Issy-les-Moulineaux, outside Paris, on May 13.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 23, 2024

Microsoft’s UAE deal could move U.S. chips and AI technology abroad

The sales accord could progress to a second phase that entails the export of crucial components of AI technology such as model weights, Microsoft's president said.
Toshihiro Kinjo (center), a research support technician at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, inspects an audio recording device in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, on April 3 as Masako Ogasawara, a research support specialist at OIST, looks on.
PODCAST / deep dive
May 23, 2024

What does climate change sound like in Okinawa?

This week, Japan Times climate editor Chris Russell joins us to discuss what researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology are listening to.
Jera’s Hekinan thermal power station in Hekinan, Aichi Prefecture
BUSINESS
May 24, 2024

Jera warns of switching investment from Australia over lack of support

The lack of financial support for production of hydrogen and ammonia took some of the shine off Australia as a destination for Japanese investment.
"Rintaro: Japanese Food from an Izakaya in California" is a welcome reminder of how Japanese basics are best done and, perhaps, how to get a little closer to how things still should be.
LIFE
May 26, 2024

A California dreamin’ cookbook of 'izakaya' favorites

In an age where traditional knowledge is being forgotten, “Rintaro: Japanese Food from an Izakaya in California” is a treasure trove.
The Japanese government updated its English education guidelines in 2017 to emphasize communication over grammar and memorization. Public school teachers are incredibly busy, however, which means schools haven’t been able to implement changes uniformly. Private and alternative schools are attempting to remedy this.
LIFE / Language / Longform
May 27, 2024

The language of opportunity: Bilingual education is on the rise in Japan

Stuck with a reputation for poor English, Japan is pushing its next generation to be bilingual. Privately run schools are seeing the benefits.
Japanese Crown Prince Akishino and Crown Princess Kiko attend a World War II memorial service held at the Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery in Tokyo on Monday.
JAPAN
May 28, 2024

World War II memorial service held in Tokyo without COVID-19 restrictions

The number of people whose remains are placed at Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery now totals 370,700.
A worker installs a barrier to block the sight of Japan's Mount Fuji emerging from behind a convenience store to deter badly behaved tourists, in the town of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture on May 21.
JAPAN
May 28, 2024

Holes poked in Mount Fuji barrier near convenience store, town says

Although a security guard is there between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., the small holes appear to have been created in the morning or evening when no one was watching.
Members of the New Zealand team huddle before the Rugby World Cup 2023 final against South Africa in Saint-Denis, France, on Oct. 28.
MORE SPORTS / Rugby
May 28, 2024

New Zealand Rugby set for pivotal vote after breakaway threat

Powerbrokers will vote for one of two proposals about a new leadership structure for the national governing body for rugby.
Mainland Chinese tourists on a converted car ferry in Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor on April 19, 2023.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 29, 2024

Business-first Hong Kong now comes with a catch: Beijing politics

The former British colony is hewing closer to mainland China, blurring distinctions that once cemented the city’s status as mostly free from Chinese politics.
Naomi Osaka plays a forehand return to Lucia Bronzetti during their women's singles match on Day 1 of the French Open tennis tournament in Paris on Sunday.
TENNIS
May 29, 2024

Osaka 'really excited to face' Swiatek at French Open

Osaka will be a big underdog against Swiatek in the pair's first ever meeting on clay.
With the recent focus on the yen and individual investing, the phrase "Mrs. Watanabe" — one of the most common pieces of jargon in Japanese financial circles — has seen a resurgence.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 29, 2024

My search for the original 'Mrs. Watanabe'

Yen retail traders are back in the spotlight. But where did the phrase for the archetypal Japanese housewife investor come from?
Meta, the parent of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has seen threat actors rely on artificial intelligence to produce fake images, videos and text to try influencing users on its sites.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 30, 2024

Meta removes AI-generated influence campaigns from China and Israel

Social media companies such as Facebook, ByteDance’s TikTok and Elon Musk’s X have struggled with the influx of fake and misleading AI-generated content on their sites.
Nawaf Al-Osimy, chief technical officer of the Jazlah Water Desalination plant, which draws vast quantities of water from the Persian Gulf and makes it drinkable, in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, on March 4.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
May 30, 2024

Saudi Arabia eyes a future beyond oil

The kingdom is trying to juggle its still-vital petroleum industry with alternative energy sources like wind and solar as it faces pressure to lower carbon emissions.
As the world marks World No Tobacco Day on Friday, debate is growing over passive smoking in one crucial space that remains unregulated: private homes.
JAPAN / Science & Health
May 30, 2024

In Japan, neighborly debates light up over secondhand smoke

Passive smoking has become a concern because many people live in multiunit apartment buildings or small houses with little space between them.
Junichiro “John” Imaeda (middle row center) decided to start Ajate, a band that infuses traditional Japanese festival music with Afrobeat, after spending three months traveling around Ghana and Burkina Faso to absorb the music of West Africa.
CULTURE / Music
May 31, 2024

Ajate's joyous blend of Afrobeat and Japanese festival music

The nine-piece project brings together sounds from disparate lands to celebrate connectivity and community.
A ground crew worker refuels a plane at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in Arizona.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 31, 2024

Waste-to-fuel company that raised $1 billion verges on collapse

Fulcrum BioEnergy has recently laid off nearly all of its staff of about 100 and halted most of its operations, according to more than a half-dozen former employees.

Longform

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