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A picture of Lai Ching-te, Taiwan's vice president and the the ruling Democratic Progressive Party's then-presidential candidate, is seen on a large screen as he attends a rally ahead of the elections, in New Taipei City on Friday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / FOCUS
Jan 14, 2024

The coal miner's son wins power in Taiwan

Pugnacious, stubborn and a "pragmatic worker for Taiwan's independence," the island's new president-elect, Lai Ching-te, will have his work cut out for him.
Tanaka takes part in a signing ceremony for the Japan-Uruguay Investment Agreement with Uruguay's Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs Luis Porto in 2015.
BUSINESS / WOMEN AT WORK
Jan 23, 2024

Why positivity is an asset in a career of PR and diplomacy

Keiko Tanaka went from an office at Nissan to the ambassador's residence in Uruguay.
A vehicle carrying Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang arrives during an official visit in Kehrsatz, near Bern, in Switzerland, on Monday. Li is visiting Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 16, 2024

China set to woo global elites with large delegation at Davos forum

Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang will make a special address on Tuesday, and will be the most senior Chinese official to attend Davos since President Xi Jinping in 2017.
A volunteer stirs food to be distributed to people in Omdurman, Sudan, in September 2023.
WORLD
Jan 18, 2024

War pushes Sudan to brink of first famine in decades

A nine-month war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has cut off huge swaths of Sudan to aid groups.
Children make handicrafts on Jan. 15 at a local community center on the island of Notojima, part of the city of Nanao in Ishikawa Prefecture.
JAPAN
Jan 19, 2024

Mental care needed for quake-affected children in central Japan

"When I'm at home, I end up playing games alone all the time."
Salmon farming can be a nasty business. Breeding involves removing eggs and sperm from anesthetized fish, and typically euthanizing males after extraction.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Jan 21, 2024

Scotland’s salmon farms navigate troubled waters for global industry

Despite pitching the red-fleshed fish as a more environmentally friendly alternative to beef, producers haven’t yet figured out how to scale sustainably.
Japan Airlines launched a new project in March 2021 in which about 1,000 flight attendants engage in promoting tourist resources in Japan's 47 prefectures.
JAPAN / Society
Jan 22, 2024

Regional business creators system picks up steam in Japan

The system allows local governments to leverage private-sector know-how in areas including tourism promotion and digitalization.
Some 5 million people globally die of causes related to air pollution from fossil fuels each year and climate change has a huge impact on people's health and psychological well-being.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 24, 2024

We’re finally recognizing climate change’s mental health toll

Climate change's impact on health, including psychological well-being, is overwhelming. COP28 took stock of this and put youth at the center of discussions like never before.
An arm of the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence is tapping companies and colleges to help harness rapidly developing AI technology that could provide an edge against global competitors like China. The challenge is ensuring it doesn’t open a backdoor into the nation’s top secrets or generate fake data.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jan 27, 2024

U.S. spies want AI as tool against China if tech can be trusted

The challenge is ensuring the rapidly developing tech doesn’t open a backdoor into the nation’s top secrets or generate fake data.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delivers a policy speech during a plenary session of the Lower House in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 30, 2024

Kishida comes full circle in policy speech with emphasis on 'power'

Amid low approval ratings and soul-searching for the ruling party, the prime minister made "power" a key theme in his policy speech.
As China struggles with a slumping stock market and a collapsing real estate sector, commentary and even financial analysis Beijing deems negative are blocked.
BUSINESS
Jan 31, 2024

China’s censorship dragnet targets critics of the economy

The government's new information campaign about the economy is wider than usual censorship, with efforts now extending to mainstream commentary.
A fundraising event for the LGBTQ+ community in New Delhi in 2022. Sexual minorities say it is hard enough being openly gay or transgender in India, and the pressure only mounts in the online world.
WORLD / Society
Feb 2, 2024

Gay, teenaged and online: LGBTQ+ Indians fight for safe space

Sexual minorities say it is hard enough being openly gay or transgender in India, with the pressure only increasing in the online world.
Ayelet Khon and Shar Shnurman walk through Kibbutz Kfar Aza in southern Israel following the Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, and after they returned to live there, on Jan. 13.
WORLD / Society
Feb 14, 2024

Israeli family returns to Kfar Azza kibbutz after Oct. 7 attack

Eight hundred people used to live on the kibbutz. The unspoken question on everyone’s mind is whether they will ever feel it is safe enough to return.
Members of the LGBTQ community and supporters celebrate in front of the Greek parliament, after a vote in favor of a bill that approved allowing same-sex civil marriages, in Athens on Thursday.
WORLD / Society
Feb 16, 2024

Greece among first Orthodox Christian countries to legalize same sex marriage

While the ruling party abstained or voted against the bill, it gained support from the opposition in a rare show of cross-party unity despite tense debate.
After stints working in New Zealand and Germany, Yoshitada Katsuki opened his winery in his home prefecture of Miyazaki in order to work with grapes his own way.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 24, 2024

Despite ‘inhospitable’ Miyazaki, Katsuki Wines stays au naturel

For pest control, Yoshitada Katsuki applies to vines a solution of vinegar, sugar and local shōchū that he jokes “lets bugs get drunk before dying.”
U.S. President Joe Biden chats with Kiribati President Taneti Maamau as Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown looks on during a summit at the White House in Washington in September.
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 23, 2024

Chinese police are working in Kiribati, Hawaii's Pacific neighbor

Kiribati has not publicly announced the policing deal, which comes as Beijing renews a push to expand security ties in the Pacific islands.
People take pictures of the city skyline lit up by drones during a performance to welcome the Lunar New Year of the Dragon, at Marina Bay in Singapore on Feb. 10.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Feb 26, 2024

Singapore embraces AI to solve everyday problems

Ranked the fifth most innovative country by the GII last year, Singapore was an early adopter of AI, releasing its first national strategy in 2019.
Farmers shout slogans as they burn an effigy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other ministers during a march toward New Delhi to push for better crop prices, at Shambhu Barrier, the border between Punjab and Haryana states, on Feb. 23.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 29, 2024

India's farmer protest fuels opposition hopes of denting Modi's appeal

India's beleaguered opposition parties have been searching for a narrative to counter the popular leader.
Donald Trump supporters wait for the former U.S. president to speak at a campaign rally in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 29, 2024

Wake up America! What happened to your exceptionalism?

What is tragic is that both the Democratic and Republican parties effectively decided on their final presidential nominees long before the primaries began.
South Korea's President Yoon Suk-yeol delivers a speech during a ceremony on the 105th anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement Day in Seoul on Friday.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 1, 2024

South Korea's Yoon says better Japan ties helping deter North Korea threat

Under Yoon's conservative administration, Seoul has sought better ties with Tokyo, which have been fraught with historical baggage for years.
A housing development next to the Sasol’s petrochemicals plant in Sasolburg, South Africa.
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 2, 2024

What it's like to live in the most polluted place on Earth

Coal and steel plants offer steady work for residents in South Africa's Vaal Triangle, yet they’re also pumping out harmful emissions.
Six months have passed since Japan started releasing treated water from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Mar 4, 2024

Fukushima water release still vexing China-Japan ties

China-bound exports of Japanese fishery products in 2023 plunged by some 30% from the previous year in value terms.
A recent $1 billion donation to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine will make the school tuition-free indefinitely, but greater systemic changes would better serve students and society.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 20, 2024

Free tuition is no panacea for medical schools

An historic $1 billion donation paves the way for debt-free medical education.
A protest against the extradition law in Hong Kong in June 2019
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 22, 2024

Where are Hong Kong’s leading pro-democracy figures now?

In 2019, Hong Kong erupted into the most stunning expression of public anger with Beijing in decades.
High-end tourism is becoming more about the kinds of experiences that Japan's lesser-known places can provide.
LIFE / Travel / Longform
Mar 25, 2024

Can Japan lure the jet-set class off the beaten path?

High-end travelers are looking for sustainability, wellness and adventure when they head abroad. Japan hopes to deliver in places other than Tokyo.
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.
The 2024 grand prix winner was Zerogravity, a marine activity provider with a focus on accessible tours and accommodation.
LIFE / Travel
Mar 29, 2024

Japan Travel Awards promote inclusive tourism

While currently far from a global player, the Japan Travel Awards is filling a void for recommendations on forward-looking travel-centric organizations.
Elon Musk, X's owner, has been open about his belief that X should carry almost all content that isn’t illegal.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 29, 2024

Elon Musk’s X is testing ‘adult content’ groups for users

Openly offering "NSFW” groups may be another way for X to try to differentiate itself from other mainstream social networking services.
Cardboard beds at an evacuation center in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, on Jan. 31. Because evacuation shelters are operated by municipalities, the quality of disaster relief varies depending on the strength of each local government, one expert points out.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 1, 2024

Over 8,000 still in evacuation centers three months after Noto quake

The patchy progress of Japan's decentralized disaster relief shows that lessons from past disasters have not been learned, experts say.
People hold candles as they attend a night vigil and prayer at the Amahoro Stadium as part of the 25th Commemoration of the 1994 Genocide, in Kigali, Rwanda, on April 7, 2019. Rwanda will soon commemorate the 30th anniversary this year.
WORLD
Apr 3, 2024

Rwanda marks 30 years since genocide

During the 1994 genocide, Hutu extremists targeting the Tutsi minority slaughtered around 800,000 people in a massacre lasting 100 days.

Longform

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