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Living without an AI kill switch

Living without an AI kill switch

OXFORD, England – It has long been clear that slow-moving governments are not keeping pace with rapid AI progress. But Anthropic’s announcement...

yesterday 30

The Japan Times

Ngaire Woods

FIFA World Cup thrives on diaspora players

FIFA World Cup thrives on diaspora players

Folarin Balogun, star striker for the United States Men’s National Team, helped to lead his country into the World Cup knockout rounds. He could...

yesterday 20

The Japan Times

Adam Minter

The world should reject China’s latest maritime power grab

The world should reject China’s latest maritime power grab

Earlier this month, Beijing designated the Taiwan Strait and several areas around Taiwan to be “coastal waters.” As many Japanese leaders and...

yesterday 20

The Japan Times

Robert D. Eldridge.

ASEAN-Russia summit signals multipolar shift

ASEAN-Russia summit signals multipolar shift

The ASEAN-Russia Commemorative Summit, held June 17-18, 2026, in Kazan, Russia, marked 35 years of dialogue relations and 30 years of formal...

yesterday 30

The Japan Times

Ronny P. Sasmita

Warsh Fed era heralds a new trial for Asian currencies

Warsh Fed era heralds a new trial for Asian currencies

Kevin Warsh’s early days at the helm of the Federal Reserve are a tough reminder that when it comes to currencies, the U.S. central bank isn’t...

previous day 40

The Japan Times

Daniel Moss

Scarier than fiction: ‘The Wizard of the Kremlin’ comes to life

Scarier than fiction: ‘The Wizard of the Kremlin’ comes to life

In Giuliano da Empoli’s 2022 novel “The Wizard of the Kremlin,” the protagonist Vadim Baranov — a fictionalized version of Russian President...

previous day 40

The Japan Times

Stephen R. Nagy

Japan lays the groundwork for submarine cable resilience

Japan lays the groundwork for submarine cable resilience

Beneath the oceans, out of sight and mostly out of mind, lies the infrastructure that keeps messages sending, videos streaming and AI tools answering...

wednesday 50

The Japan Times

Anna Oriishi

Good luck, Andy Burnham. You’ll need it.

Good luck, Andy Burnham. You’ll need it.

Keir Starmer has informed King Charles III of his intention to depart 10 Downing Street. By September, the U.K. will have its seventh prime minister...

wednesday 40

The Japan Times

Rosa Prince

Debtor countries finally have a group of their own

Debtor countries finally have a group of their own

CAIRO – On April 15, a group of developing countries launched the Borrowers’ Platform to create a more powerful collective voice in...

wednesday 40

The Japan Times

Ahmed Kouchouk

Japan’s manufacturing sector and the race for physical AI

Japan’s manufacturing sector and the race for physical AI

Japan wants to turn its factory floors into the proving ground for the next frontier of artificial intelligence. The question is whether it still has...

wednesday 40

The Japan Times

Makoto Shiono

What’s in a name? America’s Indo-Pacific reversal

What’s in a name? America’s Indo-Pacific reversal

The United States appears to be stepping back from a key element of its Indo-Pacific strategy, dropping “Indo” from the Indo-Pacific Command and...

wednesday 40

The Japan Times

Imran Khurshid

China shock 2.0 is a real economic earthquake

China shock 2.0 is a real economic earthquake

Ten years ago, economists Gordon Hanson, David Autor and David Dorn identified what they called “the China shock.” That referred to the...

23.06.2026 60

The Japan Times

Brad Glosserman

The U.S. ‘assimilate or go home’ crowd could use a history lesson

The U.S. ‘assimilate or go home’ crowd could use a history lesson

“Assimilate or go home,” read the sign at Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s side as he held forth on the Senate floor last month about the proposed...

23.06.2026 60

The Japan Times

Justin Fox

Taiwan KMT opposition leader falls short on U.S. trip

Taiwan KMT opposition leader falls short on U.S. trip

Taiwan opposition leader Cheng Li-wun has little to show from a two-week trip to the United States, the most concrete sign yet that Taiwan’s chief...

23.06.2026 60

The Japan Times

Matthew Fulco

Is Cool Japan really the secret to soft-power success?

Is Cool Japan really the secret to soft-power success?

Usually, if someone or something is trying too hard to be cool, it isn’t. The same could be said of the Cool Japan Fund, a public-private investment...

22.06.2026 60

The Japan Times

Waka Ikeda

In selling arms, China is still no superpower

In selling arms, China is still no superpower

Two military conflicts less than a year apart have renewed attention on China’s prospects as an arms exporter. But even with a compelling commercial...

22.06.2026 50

The Japan Times

Juliana Liu

FIFA was right about ticket pricing

FIFA was right about ticket pricing

If you had told me that more than 70,000 effervescent football fans would pack Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium on a Monday night to watch, ahem, New...

22.06.2026 60

The Japan Times

Juan Pablo Spinetto

Trump’s Iran deal comes with great risk — for JD Vance

Trump’s Iran deal comes with great risk — for JD Vance

“You better be careful, JD.” That was the warning last Wednesday from President Donald Trump, sort of in jest and sort of not, to his vice...

22.06.2026 50

The Japan Times

Nia-Malika Henderson

UFC spectacle at White House sparks questions about power and freedom

UFC spectacle at White House sparks questions about power and freedom

GDANSK, Poland – In his novel “The Man Without Qualities,” Robert Musil gives the Habsburg world another name: Kakania. It is not a primitive...

21.06.2026 50

The Japan Times

Grzegorz Kwiatkowski

Japan’s GCAP push signals a new security role beyond the U.S. alliance

Japan’s GCAP push signals a new security role beyond the U.S. alliance

Before heading to the Group of Seven summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi visited her British and Italian counterparts in...

19.06.2026 50

The Japan Times

Maria Mezzetti

The sudden death of judicial reviews in Hong Kong

The sudden death of judicial reviews in Hong Kong

A politician essentially handpicked by Beijing, Chief Executive John Lee, has dealt a lethal blow to the rule of law in Hong Kong. It’s simple and...

19.06.2026 60

The Japan Times

Patrick Poon

This U.S.-Iran MOU will likely be a ‘memorandum of misunderstanding’

This U.S.-Iran MOU will likely be a ‘memorandum of misunderstanding’

The long-awaited Memorandum of Understanding between Iran and the United States was electronically signed on June 14, Donald Trump’s 80th birthday....

19.06.2026 60

The Japan Times

Kuni Miyake

Peace with Iran won’t end conflict in the Gulf

Peace with Iran won’t end conflict in the Gulf

Peace deals are never easy and the path to the U.S.-Iran agreement announced on Sunday may yet take unexpected turns. If implemented as envisioned,...

19.06.2026 50

The Japan Times

Hal Brands

Keir Starmer is headed for a NATO humiliation

Keir Starmer is headed for a NATO humiliation

Three months ago Iran launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles toward the U.K.-controlled island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Neither...

19.06.2026 60

The Japan Times

Martin Ivens

Trump’s World Cup: A global stage for an anti-globalist

Trump’s World Cup: A global stage for an anti-globalist

Major world events such as the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup operate under a bargain. Countries spend billions of dollars to build stadiums and...

19.06.2026 60

The Japan Times

Cory Alpert

U.S. politics is reaching peak paranoia

U.S. politics is reaching peak paranoia

One of the most striking things about contemporary America is the popularity of conspiracy theories. The list of absurd things that “everybody...

17.06.2026 70

The Japan Times

Adrian Wooldridge

Don’t let Wall Street crush Japan’s soft power

Don’t let Wall Street crush Japan’s soft power

Would you pay 99 cents to make Super Mario jump higher? In an infamous 2014 letter to Nintendo, activist fund Oasis Management proposed that the...

17.06.2026 70

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Nobody noticed, but China just rewrote the rules of global business

Nobody noticed, but China just rewrote the rules of global business

China rewrote the rules of global business a few weeks ago. You probably missed it. Two innocuous-sounding regulations from the State Council threaten...

17.06.2026 70

The Japan Times

Brad Glosserman

The Iran war and the global debt shock it fueled

The Iran war and the global debt shock it fueled

N'DJAMENA, Chad – As everyone knows, the war in the Middle East has caused a sharp spike in oil, gas and food prices, creating severe economic...

17.06.2026 70

The Japan Times

Moussa Faki Mahamat

Brazil’s Nikkei fishers offer lessons for ocean governance

Brazil’s Nikkei fishers offer lessons for ocean governance

As Brazil commemorates 118 years of Japanese immigration on June 18, public attention will once again focus on one of the most visible legacies of the...

17.06.2026 80

The Japan Times

Danilla C. Azevedo

The toll on Afghanistan of five years of Taliban rule

The toll on Afghanistan of five years of Taliban rule

In two months, it will be five years since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan. During these five years, despite the overwhelming evidence...

16.06.2026 60

The Japan Times

Besmillah Taban

Trump, Iran and the wily ‘art’ of the digital deal

Trump, Iran and the wily ‘art’ of the digital deal

On Sunday, Washington and Tehran confirmed that both sides had “electronically signed” a preliminary memorandum of understanding aimed at ending...

16.06.2026 70

The Japan Times

Imran Khalid

The mystery of Venezuela’s missing petrodollars

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts – Shortly after the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, U.S. President Donald Trump praised the country’s new...

15.06.2026 80

The Japan Times

Ricardo Hausmann

What is the hottest Gen-Z tech trend? Anti-AI.

My favorite tech trend so far this year has nothing to do with artificial intelligence. It’s the cool girls making their own “cyberdecks,” —...

15.06.2026 60

The Japan Times

Catherine Thorbecke

Who’s afraid of ‘Japanese neo-militarism’? Nobody.

Do you live in fear of the specter of “Japanese neo-militarism”? Are you girding yourself for another campaign of advance across Asia? Perhaps you...

15.06.2026 70

The Japan Times

Gearoid reidy and ruth pollard

Peak oil demand arrives sooner than expected

NEW YORK – The U.S.-Israeli-Iran war may be remembered for many things, not least the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the reshaping of Middle...

15.06.2026 60

The Japan Times

Carolyn Kissane

What if AI retraining is just a comforting lie?

No one knows whether AI will trigger a white-collar jobpocalypse. The loudest warnings still come from people building and selling the technology,...

12.06.2026 70

The Japan Times

Catherine Thorbecke

Japan’s real AI problem is not technology. It is trust.

A recent case in Japan has sparked intense discussion about artificial intelligence. In late May, media reports revealed that the 18-year-old daughter...

12.06.2026 90

The Japan Times

Toshiaki sasao

The U.S. and Israel can’t hide their differences on Iran

No wonder Donald Trump swore at his supposed friend and ally Benjamin Netanyahu recently. Within days of that June 1 phone call, Israel and Iran were...

12.06.2026 70

The Japan Times

Marc Champion

Why China finds it hard to keep North Korea in line

“As close as lips and teeth” is how Mao Zedong famously described China’s ties with North Korea. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to...

11.06.2026 80

The Japan Times

Karishma Vaswani

Your mum and dad are influencers now, too

You may never have heard of Aki and Koichi, but this sartorial couple in their 70s from California are a hit on social media. They are part of a wave...

11.06.2026 80

The Japan Times

Andreea Papuc

Hard scrutiny of AUKUS won’t scuttle that deal

I’m a longtime fan of Midnight Oil, the crusading Australian band whose thunderous performances set the standard for political activism in the...

11.06.2026 80

The Japan Times

Brad Glosserman

Language, power and the price of entry

On a spring evening in Budapest, I watched the Kodaly Choir of Debrecen close a program of Asian voices with a song from a place few in the hall could...

11.06.2026 80

The Japan Times

Waka Ikeda

Anthropic’s latest AIs are making some customers uneasy

Catching a glimpse of Dario Amodei these days is like finding a rare butterfly. The chief executive officer of Anthropic PBC was scheduled to meet...

11.06.2026 80

The Japan Times

Parmy Olson

The U.S. and India have become regional rivals

NEW DELHI – On his recent visit to India, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio predictably touted India as one of America’s “most important...

11.06.2026 80

The Japan Times

Brahma Chellaney

Google’s AI shift is causing a collective freak-out

When Google recently announced radical changes to its search tool that will overshadow the page of blue links we’ve been used to seeing for more...

09.06.2026 80

The Japan Times

Parmy Olson

Europe weighs its nuclear future as U.S. certainty fades

MADRID – The nuclear question has returned to the center of global politics. While the specter of nuclear proliferation never disappeared, it was...

09.06.2026 80

The Japan Times

Ana Palacio

South Korea hit the China reset button. Or did it?

South Korea’s recent diplomatic thaw with China is not a pivot toward Beijing — it is a hedge against a more volatile world. The warming of ties,...

09.06.2026 80

The Japan Times

Jiseon shin

The Iran war is coming for your Diet Coke

Geopolitics is currently making it harder for India’s 1.4 billion people to cool off in the punishing summer heat. Things are about to get a whole...

09.06.2026 80

The Japan Times

David Fickling

The great shift to remote work has entered a new normal

The share of U.S. workers who worked primarily from home, or WFHers, last year was 13.3%, according to recently released U.S. Census Bureau data,...

08.06.2026 90

The Japan Times

Justin Fox