My thanks to Monocle's Tyler Brûlé and Fiona Wilson for inviting me to join an on-air conversation about Sanae Takaichi's chances of becoming prime minister, the end of the Osaka Expo and my upcoming book on Fukushima. monocle.com/player/?uuid...

The Washington Post, The New York Times, Newsmax and others said their journalists would not agree to the Defense Department’s new restrictions on news gathering ahead of a Tuesday deadline. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/b...

東日本大震災から14年　当時の「子供」にいま、甲状腺がんが増えている news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/b50... #福島原発事故

Here's an odd article in the Japan media about a Jiji Press cameraman being punished for threatening to lower Takaichi's approval rating. If true, the cameraman clearly spoke out of turn for claiming influence he didn't actually have, but why is this a news item at all? www.47news.jp/13268995.html

時事通信のカメラマンに世論を動かす力がある訳ないので、この事をニュースにしたのはなぜだろう。高市さんがエリートメディアと戦っている姿を見せるためなのではないでしょうか？

The BBC has published the top ten countries for expats, and Japan didn't make the cut despite the increased number of foreign residents here. I'm guessing the language barrier is one reason for the omission. www.bbc.com/travel/artic...

The AI boom is reviving San Francisco. One new event is robot fight nights. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/t...

Senator Cruz calls Trump administration's use of FCC threats against TV media "dangerous as hell." www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09...

Steve Bannon used to talk about Abe Shinzo being a precursor to Trump, and the removal of Jimmy Kimmel and threats about revoking FCC licenses are an example of where he was right.

Eighty years after Japan surrendered to end World War Two, only some 800 of its war veterans are still alive. I interviewed six of the last surviving soldiers and sailors of the Emperor's military. Here are their stories: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/w...

He won zero seats in the last election, so an AI chatbot leading an illusory political party seems oddly appropriate.

From the archives of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan: Imperial Japanese Navy pilot Lt. Zenji Abe, who participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor, speaking in 1994 and 2005 about his experiences during the attack and the war. youtu.be/x-t5tOJlHB4

7-Eleven's Japanese-American CEO wants to spend $13 billion to bring Japanese convenience store-level food to stores in the U.S. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/b...

Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba to announce his resign today, NHK reports. He will hold a press conference at 6:00 pm Japan time at which he is also expected to announce an LDP internal election to pick his replacement.

I visited the Japanese island of Sado, where locals perform Noh, an ancient and otherworldly theater form. Once the preferred entertainment of the samurai, Noh survives today in specialized theaters -- and on Sado, a small island with one-third of Japan's Noh stages. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/06/w...

Without a comparative study, it's tough to know if the cancers rates found in Fukushima are high or just normal. It amazes me that authorities would leave so important a question unresolved. But then again, they've never fully revealed what happened in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, either.

Was an unusually high number of thyroid cancers detected in Fukushima due to the 2011 nuclear accident, or over screening as many doctors say? Japan hasn't conducted a comparative study to find a definitive answer. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/w...

Here's a story on China stirring up nationalism with propaganda movies that promote hatred of Japan -- while deflecting attention away from the country's own weak economy and other more contemporary failings. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/w...

Japan's justice minister wants to prepare for a future in which 10% of the population is immigrants. That's about three times the current ratio. www.47news.jp/13079769.html

A podcast on the rise of Sanseito and changes in Japan. Check it out. www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

My obituary of 102-year-old Sen Masaoki, aka Sen Genshitsu, who volunteered to be a kamikaze pilot during WWII, and survived the war to become grand master of the Urasenke school of Japan's tea ceremony. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/15/w...

The Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan is working with the History Channel to make available recordings of historic press conferences from the Club's archive.

Here's the behind-the-scenes story of why and how I profiled six of Japan's last surviving war veterans. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/i...

Big weapons export deal for Japan. www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2...

Speaking in the Diet, Sanseito leader Kamiya Sohei calls Japan's tariff agreement with Trump an "unequal treaty," likening it to the extraterritoriality treaties that Western imperialist powers imposed on Meiji-era Japan. www.47news.jp/12972126.html

Apparently, the latest health fad in America is called "Japanese walking," which means alternating intervals of walking at a fast or slow pace. I guess that beats shouting in a forest or cleaning one's closet. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/w...

One of the tsunami and earthquake stories to which I contributed today: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/29/w...

When I saw the magnitude 8.7 earthquake this morning and tsunami alerts all along Japan's Pacific seaboard, I had flashbacks of the last two big tsunamis that I covered, in Indonesia in 2004 and Japan in 2011. Both were apocalyptic, with ocean reaching out to kill tens of thousands.

"As the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II approaches, only a few veterans of Japan’s brutal war remain. “Never die for Emperor or country,” one advised." A very moving piece from @martinfackler.bsky.social . (Gift link) www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/w...

Eighty years after Japan surrendered to end World War Two, only some 800 of its war veterans are still alive. I interviewed six of the last surviving soldiers and sailors of the Emperor's military. Here are their stories: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/w...

Shunsaku Tamiya, who transformed his father’s former sawmill into a leading manufacturer of plastic model kits, and whose passion for detail once led him to buy and disassemble a Porsche to make a perfect miniature version, died at 90 years of age. My obituary: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/25/w...

Demonstrators gather outside the Kantei to call for Ishiba to remain on as prime minister, Sankei reports. Better late than never? news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/f62...

The Mainichi Shimbun is reporting that Ishiba will announce his resignation by the end of next month. He'll take the political hit for doing the unpopular trade deal with Trump and then step aside to let the LDP get a fresh face. news.yahoo.co.jp/pickup/6546550

Paranoid was one of the first albums I ever bought. I was in ninth grade and owning Black Sabbath was like possessing contraband. Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath Lead Singer Turned Reality TV Star, Dies at 76 www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/a...

Trump's love-hate relationship with Japan is once again on display in this Jiji story, in which the U.S. President professes to "love Japan" and marvel at the difficulty of the Japanese language, while also complaining about the trade imbalance: www.jiji.com/jc/article?k...

Has the global wave of right-wing populism finally hit Japan's shores? Or do the gains by two nationalist parties in Sunday's parliamentary election point to something different? My analysis of Japan's Upper House results: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/w...

Historic election loss for Japan's long-governing LDP, which is now a minority party in both houses of the Diet for the first time since its founding in 1955. The protest vote went to new right-wing populist parties instead of the established liberal opposition. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/w...

Tough night for Prime Minister Ishiba of Japan, whose LDP-led coalition looks likely to loose its majority in the Upper House of the Diet. Ishiba is facing calls to step down, but he is vowing to stay on as national leader. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/w...

My look at Sohei Kamiya, the Trump-inspired founder of Sanseito, an upstart party that has brought a fiery right-wing populism to Japan’s Upper House elections on Sunday. Kamiya has promised to limit foreign workers, fend off global capital and put “Japanese First." www.nytimes.com/2025/07/19/w...

These decisions are going to come back to haunt us. The Trump administration is degrading American disaster response and weather forecasting capabilities at a time when we face a growing number of severe weather events. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/13/c...

Trump backpedals from his plan to disband FEMA, acknowledging that the U.S. needs a federal disaster-management agency to do what state governments and local first-responders cannot do. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/u... #texas #fukushima #fema

In the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan's govt struggled because it didn't have an agency to manage its response. At the time, Japanese officials told me that they needed an agency like FEMA. Fast forward to today, and Trump wants to gut and even disband FEMA, assumedly to pay for tax cuts.

This is insane. We're surrendering the future.

President Trump's budget will cut funding of basic science research by 34% and support of all types of science by 22%. Meanwhile, China continues to increase its funding. The U.S. decline is clear, and completely self-inflicted. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/s...

「外国人は危険! 」はデマだった。 note.com/tsuruikoclub...

The breakdown in negotiations has been striking because both Tokyo and Washington expected a trade deal to progress smoothly. After Trump announced sweeping tariffs, Japan’s chief negotiator flew to Washington, where he even donned a “Make America Great Again” hat. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/b...

“Today is a dark day for press freedom,” said Seth Stern, the director of advocacy at the nonprofit Freedom of the Press Foundation. He called Paramount’s decision “spineless” and “an invitation” for the president to target other news outlets. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/b...

CBS was once a leader of American journalism. Its corporate owner Paramount just traded away that legacy to secure a big business deal. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/b...

If this story is true, this is the scariest thing I've seen since the first Terminator movie: www.france24.com/en/live-news...

Takahiro Shiraishi was hanged on Friday for a two-month killing spree in which he murdered nine people, whose body parts were found in coolers at his home outside Tokyo. It was Japan’s first execution in almost three years. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/w...