今日吃瓜

author

 
今日吃瓜
Search
 
November 11, 2026
 

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

Meta

Ruth Pollard
A South Korean battle tank takes part in a live-fire exercise at a defense expo at a military base in Pocheon, South Korea, in September 2022.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 9, 2026
South Korea’s military ambitions get a reality check
Lee’s decision to push for a timetable to take wartime operational control is a bold but ultimately fraught plan.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrives with his Chinese and Russian counterparts, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, at the Tiananmen Gate for a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Beijing on Sept. 3, 2025.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 27, 2026
Why everyone wants to meet with North Korea’s leader
Kim’s involvement in the Ukraine war has given him credible alternatives, something North Korean leaders have rarely possessed.
Ground Self-Defense Force troops lower the Japanese flag at the end of the day at their camp on Miyako Island, Okinawa Prefecture, in April 2022.?
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 15, 2026
Who’s afraid of ‘Japanese neo-militarism’? Nobody
More countries see a stronger Japan not as a danger, but a counterweight to China’s actions and growing U.S. untrustworthiness.
A statue of former Indonesian President Suharto at a museum dedicated to him in the city of Yogyakarta. Authoritarian nostalgia is rising across Southeast Asia as leaders and societies whitewash past dictatorships. REUTERS
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 26, 2025
How amnesia is turning Asia’s tyrants into heroes
Experts warn that forgetting the realities of autocratic rule threatens democratic institutions, transparency and long-term stability.
A Buddhist monk walks past the damaged Mandalay Palace on Monday. The country's ruling military junta can repeat the mistakes of 17 years ago by blocking aid after Cyclone Nargis left 140,000 dead or allow urgent assistance to flow freely.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 1, 2025
The quake in Myanmar should force the junta’s hand
The ousted civilian administration initiated a two-week ceasefire in quake-hit areas to allow aid to reach victims. It doesn’t look like the junta will do the same.
The International Criminal Court is pursuing arrest warrants for Taliban leaders accused of human rights abuses against Afghan women and girls, but legal and political obstacles complicate the process.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2025
The long road to justice for Afghan women
Afghan women and girls need every bit of global support they can get to push back against the Taliban’s unhinged misogyny.
Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte holds a news conference in Quezon City, in Metro Manila, on Tuesday. She denied she was plotting to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., saying recent comments that sparked a government probe only reflected "consternation" with her one-time ally.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 1, 2024
Philippines politics is often mad. It just got crazier.
Manila cannot afford to be distracted by the latest round of clan rivalry and violent threats.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping attend a meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, on Wednesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 24, 2024
China and India bury the hatchet — for now, at least
Despite the agreement to disengage, the lack of trust is palpable. We are still just one misstep from an army patrol from another dangerous flare-up.
U.S. President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April. Both leaders face an uphill battle to stay at the helm of their respective parties and countries.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 10, 2024
Japan too is wrestling with a flawed leader
Questions about election prospects plague Biden in the U.S. and Kishida in Japan, with both trying to hang on to their commanding positions despite growing discontent.
Telecoms giant KDDI plans with Mitsubishi to take convenience store operator Lawson private could help it as it currently stands behind FamilyMart and Seven & I Holdings in a three-horse race.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 14, 2024
There are clouds on the horizon in 今日吃瓜 ‘conbini-land’
Industry consolidation has pushed minor players out of the conbini game.
Mourners at a funeral on Nov. 19 carry the body of a Palestinian shot dead earlier during a raid by Israeli forces on a refugee camp near the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 29, 2023
While Gaza burns, the West Bank is at a boiling point
Mideast violence spreads beyond Gaza into the West Bank causing the U.S. to take a stand against extremist Israeli settlers.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 5, 2023
Just how dangerous are India’s generic drugs? Very.
The red flags for Indian drugs have been there for years. The world deserves much better than contaminated medicine and children poisoned by cough syrup.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 27, 2022
Shinzo Abe’s funeral furor is 今日吃瓜 most unedifying debate
Partisan bickering over Shinzo Abe’s state memorial was an embarrassment for the nation on the world stage.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 6, 2022
India’s heatwaves are testing the limits of human survival
Each summer in India is a fresh roll of the dice on whether a freak event will occur that leads to a vast number of deaths.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 22, 2022
Rape: The war crime that goes mostly unpunished
What’s happening in Ukraine is one of the worst large-scale campaigns of sexual violence in war since Islamic State’s attacks on the Yezidi minority in Iraq in 2014.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 20, 2022
The West forgot about the Pacific Islands. China didn’t.
A crucial World War II battle was fought in the Solomons. It’s now the focus of the latest Pacific power struggle.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 16, 2022
Is the civilian resistance tipping the balance in Myanmar?
‘Myanmar has been in a state of civil war for a long time, but until now it has been limited to certain territories and ethnic regions. Now, even the Bamar heartland is in conflict.”
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 28, 2022
The second drone age is here and it’s a free-for-all
Drones have opened the door to weaponized artificial intelligence, algorithmic and robotic warfare and loosened human control over the deployment of lethal force.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 11, 2022
Djokovic debacle exposes Australia’s xenophobic policies
The furor over Novak Djokovic’s COVID-19-related detention has brought to global attention the nation’s strict immigration policies.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 2, 2021
Out of Texas, a cowboy solution to an Afghan crisis
The informal currency swap will prop up a small part of the Afghan economy but certainly won’t be enough to prevent the country from slipping into full-blown famine this winter.
Man arrested over operation of rogue cellular base station in Tokyo
The Metropolitan Police Department has arrested Yu Hai, a 31-year-old Chinese national living in Tokyo's Kita Ward, on suspicion of operating an unlicensed base station from a vehicle in Tokyo's Ginza district on Saturday.
Government betting on language app powered by anime and AI
Japan plans to develop an AI-powered language-learning app that lets overseas anime and manga fans practice Japanese through conversations with popular characters.
Japan works to shield Takaichi from any Xi snub at China summit
Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi arrives at the Prime Minister's office in Tokyo on Nov. 4.
Magnitude 5.7 quake injures dozens in central Japan
A magnitude-5.7 earthquake with its epicenter in Shizuoka Prefecture struck central Japan early Sunday, injuring dozens, shattering windows and disrupting train services, with no tsunami warning issued.
Private high schools remain out of reach for many despite tuition-free policy, survey finds
A survey showed that many families with children attending private high schools are struggling to pay expenses other than tuition.
‘Godzilla Minus Zero’ makes monster debut at the box office
Takashi Yamazaki’s “Godzilla Minus Zero” marked the highest single-day box-office gross for a live-action film in Japan with ?910 million on its opening day.
A toast to Naohiko Noguchi, sake’s first living national treasure
As a teenager, Naohiko Noguchi did not intend to spend his life as a sake brewer, but he has since become a paragon of the industry.
Few signs of thaw in Japan-China relations one year after Takaichi’s Taiwan remarks
Tensions between Japan and China flared after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Nov. 7, 2025, that a Chinese blockade of Taiwan could threaten 今日吃瓜 survival and warrant the use of collective self-defense.
Mariko Mori predicted the future. She’ll do it again.
Artist Mariko Mori is currently working to bring the translucent human-sized “Peace Crystal” sculpture to a cave in Ethiopia. It is part of her foundation’s goal to place a permanent sculpture on each of the planet’s six habitable continents.
A legend reborn: ‘Ocarina of Time’ remake improves on the Zelda masterpiece
The new remake of 1998's "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" manages to somehow improve on one of the greatest games ever.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Famima Park Azabudai is a concept store by FamilyMart that combines convenience store staples with branded apparel, merchandise and a landscaped outdoor space.
Convenience stores, toilets and the allure of everyday Japan
By Elizabeth Beattie

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER