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A closed McDonald's in Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture, amid an outage that affected stores in Japan and abroad on Friday. The chain resumed operations on Saturday at almost all of its outlets in Japan.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 16, 2024

McDonald’s Japan resumes operations after outage

The recovery comes after McDonald’s was hit by a system outage that appears to have started in the Asia-Pacific region Friday.
A closed McDonald's in Tokyo on Friday after a tech issue forced outlets of the burger chain to shut around the world.
BUSINESS
Mar 16, 2024

Big Mac goes Big Tech — with a few hiccups

McDonald's reliance on tech backfired on Friday when an outage forced it to shut stores around the world.
Japanese automakers explore a unified approach and industry consolidation to stay competitive in the global EV market.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 19, 2024

As China’s EVs approach, Japan’s carmakers must step on the gas

China sees an opportunity to dominate, and just as it did with sectors from steel to solar panels, it’s unlikely to always play fair.
Giant cut-outs of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other party leaders are positioned beside a road in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh on Feb. 25.
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 21, 2024

Hardships and broken promises no hindrance for Modi in India's rural north

If India's prime minister earns a third term in office, it will be in spite of the state of the rural and farming economy — not because of it.
Afghan schoolgirls in 2022. Boys and men will return to classes when the Afghan new year starts in late March, but girls and women will be left behind again by a Taliban government education blockade that is part of a raft of restrictions the United Nations has labelled "gender apartheid."
WORLD / Society
Mar 21, 2024

Afghan girls and women cling to glitchy, lonesome online learning

Schools in Afghanistan have opened for the new academic year, but girls have been banned from joining classes for the third year in a row.
A big selling point for Starlink is its ease of setting up and use.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 26, 2024

Elon Musk’s Starlink terminals are falling into the wrong hands

A thriving black market results in kits being smuggled into territories where the service has no agreement to operate and their use by repressive regimes.
A ban on propositional betting in collegiate sports isn’t expected to have a material impact on DraftKings’ financial performance.
MORE SPORTS
Mar 28, 2024

DraftKings shares slump after NCAA proposes college prop bet ban

The NCAA says it is "drawing the line on sports betting to protect student-athletes and to protect the integrity of the game.”
A Palestinian boy walks on the site of an Israeli strike in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on March 27.
COMMENTARY / World / Geoeconomic Briefing
Apr 2, 2024

How the Israel-Hamas war is changing the international security order

The divide within the international community over the conflict is set to become even more serious.
Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 1, 2024

Rakuten considers combining financial units

A proposed IPO of its securities unit may not proceed if the integration is realized, while the banking arm is expected to remain listed.
Cars drive past the statue of General Aung San in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar, on March 26.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Apr 2, 2024

More than 800 suspected scammers arrested in Myanmar-China joint operation

The UN human rights office said 120,000 people were being held in scam compounds in Myanmar in 2023.
The European Commission has been investigating Microsoft's tying of Office and Teams since 2020.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 2, 2024

Microsoft to separate Teams and Office globally amid antitrust scrutiny

The company started selling the two products separately in the EU and Switzerland on Oct. 1 last year.
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.
An audio work by Saga University's Art Works to Listen and Imagine project is available on the internet.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Kyushu
Apr 8, 2024

Experiencing art exhibitions through listening

Events and exhibitions are being held to encourage visitors to appreciate artworks with their ears and imagination.
Workers at a factory in the town of Sriperumbudur, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, on Jan. 3. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has kept India on its swift upward path among the world’s largest economies. Many Indians are better off, though wealth gaps have widened.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 3, 2024

What 10 years of Modi rule has meant for India’s economy

The value of India’s stock market has tripled since the prime minister took office and its economy has almost doubled — but gains have been widely unequal.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects the first test-fire of the Hwasong-16B, a new-type intermediate-range, solid-fueled ballistic missile outside Pyongyang in this image released Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 3, 2024

North Korea aims to adopt solid-fuel missiles for faster launches

Analysts say solid-fuel missiles can be faster to deploy than liquid-fuel variants, but it's unclear if the North can or will adopt these exclusively.
Former president of the Spanish football federation Luis Rubiales in Madrid on Sept. 15
SOCCER
Apr 4, 2024

Rubiales arrested at airport over alleged federation graft scandal

His arrest came two weeks after investigators searched 11 locations as part of a probe.
A petition filed by a Ukrainian serviceman pointed to the dangers of troops — often whiling away long hours outside of combat — spending chunks of their monthly wage on online gambling platforms on the mobile phones.
WORLD
Apr 4, 2024

Ukraine tackles gambling addiction within its military ranks

A Ukrainian parliamentary committee will meet Thursday to discuss draft legislation imposing stricter controls over the gambling industry.
A fake website claiming to be that of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (left) and the actual site
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 5, 2024

Tokyo police issue warning on phishing scam involving false claims of arrest warrants

Tokyo police issue warning against scam involving fake websites aimed at getting victims to disclose their personal information and bank account details.
U.S. independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a campaign event in Oakland, California, on March 26.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Apr 7, 2024

'Real threat': U.S. presidential long-shot RFK Jr alarms Democrats

The environmental lawyer and conspiracy theorist has double-digit support and polling suggests he's hurting Biden more than Trump.
Of 26 fires attributed to pets activating gas or induction heating stove controls, 19 were caused by cats, the National Institute of Technology and Evaluation (NITE) said.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 8, 2024

The cat did it: Warnings issued for pet-related household fires

Most of these incidents were caused by cats and dogs — and even a baby goat — triggering gas and induction heating stoves while their owners were away.
Iowa Hawkeyes guard Caitlin Clark (22) shoots against the South Carolina Gamecocks in Cleveland, Ohio, on Sunday.
BASKETBALL
Apr 9, 2024

'Caitlin Clark Effect' set to transform WNBA

"No one has been able to capture the kind of magic or lightning in a bottle like Caitlin Clark has done," said one academic.
Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) concluded that China interfered in the last two elections, an official probe heard on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 9, 2024

Canada spies found China interfered in last two elections, probe hears

Intelligence analysts and the Conservatives say Trudeau's government has not done enough to combat Chinese interference.
A recent near-hacking incident underscores the critical role of open-source software in the digital economy and the vulnerabilities inherent in its decentralized development process.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 9, 2024

The world narrowly escapes a supply chain doomsday scenario

A software engineer last month stumbled on what some say would have been the most widespread and effective backdoor ever planted in any software product.
Tung Chih-hsing, joint combat planning department chief of Taiwan's Defense Ministry, attends a press briefing on the annual Han Kuang military drills, in Taipei, on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 10, 2024

Taiwan war games to simulate repelling a Chinese drill that turns into attack

Taiwan's annual war games this year will practice "kill" zones at sea to break a blockade and simulate such a scenario.
Two astronauts from Japan are set to take part in the Artemis program, a NASA-led effort to return astronauts to the moon.
JAPAN
Apr 10, 2024

Japanese astronaut to be first non-American to set foot on moon

The offer to Japan came as part of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's state visit, and as Washington seeks to strengthen ties with a key ally.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida addresses a meeting on AI strategy held at the Prime Minister's Office in December. Japan is beginning to draw global attention for its potential as an AI market.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 12, 2024

Google alums go big in Japan with months-old startup Sakana AI

Sakana is setting out to train low-cost generative AI models using small datasets, unveiling three AI models for Japanese speakers last month.
Ukrainian soldiers take cover during fighting in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 25, 2022.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Apr 13, 2024

Kharkiv's civilians under fire as Ukraine faces 'catastrophic' air defense shortage

The city is so near the border that Russian missiles can reach their target in less than a minute.
An anti-missile system operates after Iran launched drones and missiles toward Israel, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel, on Sunday.
WORLD
Apr 14, 2024

Multiphase Iran attack tests U.S.-backed Israeli air defenses

Early indications suggest Israel's air defenses effectively handled Iran's missile and drone attack, aimed at overwhelming systems with its complexity.
Japan's Fair Trade Commission may take administrative action against Google over its digital advertising business.
BUSINESS
Apr 16, 2024

Japan FTC may take administrative action against Google

The FTC suspects that Google is unfairly restricting transactions on Yahoo Japan and messaging app Line, in violation of Japan's antimonopoly law.
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.

Longform

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