Wimbledon won’t be the same without line judges
It will soon be the end of an era at Wimbledon. From 2025, the All England Club has announced that…
Japan’s next prime minister is a bit of a maverick
The 67-year-old Shigeru Ishiba will become Japan’s new prime minister on 1 October after winning a surprisingly exciting play-off vote…
The tragic cost of Japan’s floods
Yet another natural disaster has struck in Japan as floods and landslides in the Noto peninsula, precipitated by ‘unprecedented’ rainfall,…
The trouble with the Champions League
The revamped Champions League kicks off this week with all the gushing hyperbole we have come to expect from this…
Hot springs have doomed Japan’s net zero ambitions
Most people know that Japan is a country cursed with considerable seismic activity; frequent, and very occasionally devastating, earthquakes and…
Why won’t the England manager sing the national anthem?
England’s interim manager Lee Carsley has intimated that he will not be singing the national anthem as his team takes…
Why are Britain’s diplomats virtue-signalling to South Korea?
An important international conference will take place this week in South Korea, focused on the peninsula’s security concerns. The UK…
Scottish Nats still haven’t worked out why they lost
Unlike a slightly more high-profile reunion event, the ticketing website for the Scottish referendum tenth anniversary show is not expected to crash.…
Shanshan may be the strongest typhoon in Japanese history
The Japanese are battening down the hatches – again – as typhoon Shanshan wreaks devastation to the south-west of the country, with…
The allure and terror of Mount Fuji
Six men have died on Japan’s iconic Mount Fuji since the start of the climbing season in July. This figure,…
Japan just can’t find the staff
‘Kanko kankai’ (tourism pollution) is the latest buzz phrase here in Japan as the double-edged samurai sword of the visitor…
How scandal brought down yet another Japanese leader
Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida has announced he will be stepping down as leader of the Liberal Democratic party next month. This…
Nagasaki shouldn’t have snubbed Israel from its A-bomb ceremony
Nagasaki’s Peace Park held a ceremony today to mark the 79th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on…
Japan’s volatile stock market is causing panic
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index registered its biggest ever daily fall on Monday, plummeting by over 12 per cent and continuing…
Japan is running out of rice
Japan is running out of rice. Stocks have fallen to their lowest levels in decades, prompting fears that emergency reserves…
What’s the problem with playing Premier League football in the US?
Sadiq Khan has suggested that the long rumoured prospect of Premier League fixtures being played in the United States is…
Why the punishment fits the ‘crime’ for Japan’s smoking gymnast
Japan’s Olympics have got off to the worst possible start. The captain of their women’s gymnastics team Shoko Miyata has…
Should the BBC be mocking Ronaldo’s tears?
Portugal squeezed through to the Euros quarter finals last night after a penalty shoot-out victory against plucky Slovenia. Or perhaps…
Why does Japan want to build a 300-mile conveyor belt?
In a move that sounds like something out of the new Francis Ford Coppola film Megalopolis, the Japanese government has announced…
King Charles has much in common with Japan’s Anglophile Emperor
The Japanese Emperor is in London today for a state visit, the first by the occupant of the chrysanthemum throne…
Why Japan is unlikely to legalise same-sex marriage
Thailand has just passed a ‘landmark’ marriage equality bill, which will pave the way for the recognition of same-sex unions…
Will Gary Lineker be able to keep his election thoughts quiet during the Euros?
It is hard to imagine the European football championship, which kicked off last night, was a big factor in Rishi…
Can a government dating app solve Japan’s birth crisis?
The Tokyo metropolitan government has announced that it will soon be in the online matchmaking business. It is launching a…
What’s behind the boom in Japanese fiction?
‘There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine’. This is a quote from the novel Butter by…
How to quit like the Japanese
Tokyo For many, the idea of quitting a job they hate, of walking into their boss’s office and telling him…
