Japan

Valieva’s Coach and Russian Teammates React to Skater’s Crushing Olympic End

Several members of the Russian contingent were in tears by then, including not only Valieva but the silver medalist, Alexandra Trusova, too. In seconds, the scene at the edge of the rink quickly shifted to a blur of disparate emotions — crushing disappointment, raw frustration, incalculable pain — as the weight of a doping scandal […]

In Hawaii, Blinken Aims for a United Front With Allies on North Korea

HONOLULU — Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and the foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan on Saturday presented a unified front against North Korea’s recent missile tests, which the country has been conducting at its fastest rate in years. “I think it is clear to all of us that the D.P.R.K. is in […]

As Other Hot Spots Boil, U.S. Shows Its Foreign Policy Focus Is Asia

MELBOURNE, Australia — With Europe bracing for the possibility of its biggest ground war in decades, the American secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, took a 27-hour flight this week in the opposite direction. On Friday, Mr. Blinken met with the foreign ministers of Australia, Japan and India at a summit in Melbourne of the […]

Toyota Topped G.M. in U.S. Car Sales in 2021

Automakers are also contending with the transition to electric cars and trucks. Many companies are spending tens of billions of dollars designing battery-powered models and building plants to produce them. They are racing to catch up to Tesla, which sells a large majority of electric vehicles now. But most established automakers are unlikely to gain […]

The Island Paradise Near the Front Line of Tensions Over Taiwan

ISHIGAKI, Japan — For decades, Testuhiro Kinjo’s biggest worry was defending his mango trees against typhoons and marauding insects. That was before the Japanese government decided to deploy missile launchers near his property on Ishigaki, a small, subtropical island just 200 miles from Taiwan. Over the past year, as China has carried out ever more […]

Toyota Outlines Electric Vehicle Expansion Plan

Toyota, the world’s largest carmaker, belatedly joined the electric vehicle bandwagon on Tuesday, saying it hoped that by the end of the decade battery-powered cars would account for one-third of sales and almost all of the sales of its Lexus luxury brand. The Japanese automaker pioneered hybrid vehicles that use electric and gasoline motors, but […]

Masayuki Uemura, 78, Dies; Designed the First Nintendo Console

TOKYO — Masayuki Uemura, an engineer who developed the Nintendo Entertainment System, which helped start a global revolution in home gaming and laid the foundation for today’s video game industry, died on Dec. 9. He was 78. His death was announced by Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan, where Mr. Uemura led the Center for Game […]

A Top SoftBank Executive Wants $2 Billion in Pay. His Boss Disagrees.

Impressed by Mr. Claure’s ambition and hustle, Mr. Son tapped him to run Sprint, which was losing cash, bleeding subscribers and badly lagging its larger rivals, AT&T and Verizon. Mr. Claure took over as Sprint’s chief executive after regulators thwarted its planned merger with T-Mobile. He stabilized the company and eventually resuscitated a deal with […]

As World Shuts Borders to Stop Omicron, Japan Offers a Cautionary Tale

TOKYO — With the emergence of the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus late last week, countries across the globe rushed to close their borders to travelers from southern Africa, even in the absence of scientific information about whether such measures were necessary or likely to be effective in stopping the virus’s spread. Japan has […]