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July 02, 2026
 

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Maciej Kisilowski
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban attends a campaign event in Budapest amid the country's parliamentary election on Sunday.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 15, 2026
After Orban, Hungary faces an even harder battle
Center-right Tisza’s victory in Hungary’s election shows that even a highly entrenched new-right regime can be defeated at the polls.
Hungarian President Viktor Orban and U.S. President Donald Trump in Davos, Switzerland. The U.S. president has affirmed his “complete and total” endorsement of the Hungarian prime minister who faces a tight election on April 12.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 25, 2026
MAGA meets Europe: Trump’s envoys rip up diplomatic playbook
The envoys, traditionally thought of as builders of bridges, have instead been publicly picking fights with their hosts in service of their boss.
The recent massive pride parade in Hungary shows that even under authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, popular resistance for liberal democracy persists — but the region’s deeper political stalemate endures.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2025
Is democracy stalemated?
Yet neither triumphalism nor fatalism captures the real dynamic. A more measured analysis shows that history’s arc is not bending at all — it is stuck.
Robert Fico, whose Smer-Social Democracy Party won Slovakia’s early parliamentary elections, exits a meeting with the country’s president on Monday. 
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2023
Can national reconciliation defeat European populism?
For the U.S., Slovakia’s general election may produce another unreliable allied government.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 30, 2023
Eastern Europe sounds warning on Wagner mercenaries in Belarus
Latvia’s prime minister, Krisjanis Karins, said the presence of Wagner in neighboring Belarus posed an urgent threat of ‘infiltration” into the European Union.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 11, 2023
The populist authoritarian hangover and democracies
After authoritarian governments are toppled, the hard work of institutional reconstruction begins.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 3, 2022
Does the West need autocrats to fight Putin?
By embracing Poland’s quasi-authoritarian regime in the interest of using its border as an access point to Ukraine, the West has struck another Faustian bargain it will come to regret.
Japan triples departure tax in push to combat overtourism
Tourists in Yanaka Ginza, Tokyo, on Wednesday. Japan tripled its International Tourist Tax (departure tax) to ¥3,000 from ¥1,000 on Wednesday for all travelers leaving Japan, regardless of nationality.
More facilities in Japan placing sanitary bins in men’s restrooms
A sanitary bin with an awareness sticker placed in a men's restroom in the Nagasaki Municipal Government building
Inside Japan’s rigid adoption system, a British family finds a way
James Benstead, his wife, Jesse, and their three children. Their adopted son is in the rear stroller.
Life inside Japan’s largest prison for women
Western-style rooms spanning the size of four tatami mats with hardwood floors, a toilet and soft mattresses on bed frames are designated for foreign nationals and those with health conditions at Tochigi Prison.
‘My dream is broken’: Japan visa rules push out foreign residents
A man orders from a kebab shop in the Okubo district in Tokyo.
Japan’s fertility system offers few safe paths for same-sex couples
A Tokyo Pride parade participant holds a sign that says "we want to be a married couple, not a couple."
Life inside Japan’s largest prison for women
Western-style rooms spanning the size of four tatami mats with hardwood floors, a toilet and soft mattresses on bed frames are designated for foreign nationals and those with health conditions at Tochigi Prison.
Inside Japan’s rigid adoption system, a British family finds a way
James Benstead, his wife, Jesse, and their three children. Their adopted son is in the rear stroller.
A French ship with close ties to Japan combines arts and sciences on the high seas
Romain Troublé, the executive director of Tara Ocean Foundation, speaks to visitors aboard the Tara during a rare port call in Tokyo in April.
In Kyushu’s far south, Senti.U sparks a culinary destination
Chef Yasuhiko Uchida was born in Saga Prefecture but has made his home in Kanoya, Kagoshima Prefecture, since 2012.

Podcast

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

Longform

The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival
By Alex K.T. Martin

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