News stories by Katsuhiro Asagiri

ASTANA, Kazakhstan, October 12 (IPS) - In a world increasingly divided by war, political distrust and competing ideologies, Kazakhstan has spent more than two decades pursuing an unusual diplomatic undertaking: keeping representatives of different religions in conversation.

VIENNA, September 24 (IPS) - The international nuclear order is facing another test as governments move from an inconclusive review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in New York to renewed disputes over safeguards and nuclear security in Vienna—and toward the first Review Conference of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) later this year.

TOKYO, Japan, September 11 (IPS) - Twenty years after five Central Asian states signed a landmark treaty banning nuclear weapons across their region, their foreign ministers have used the anniversary to warn that faltering arms-control agreements, nuclear modernization and deepening international mistrust are placing global security under growing strain.

TOKYO, Japan, September 8 (IPS) - A symposium examining Japan’s death penalty through the lens of human dignity was held on September 5 at Joseph Hall of St. Ignatius Church in Yotsuya, Tokyo.

TOKYO / ASTANA, August 31 (IPS) - Across the vast steppe of northeastern Kazakhstan, the scars of the Cold War remain visible. At the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site, the Soviet Union conducted 456 nuclear tests between 1949 and 1989, exposing nearby communities to radiation and leaving health and environmental consequences that have endured across generations.

HIROSHIMA, Japan, August 7 (IPS) - This year’s Hiroshima Peace Declaration did not begin with words of remembrance alone. It opened instead with what the declaration called “military invasions using nuclear weapons as tools of intimidation,” “imperious actions by major powers in violation of international law,” and the failure of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, Review Conference — for the third consecutive time — to adopt a final document.

VATICAN CITY, July 13 (IPS) - More than eight decades after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ushered humanity into the nuclear age, the world is confronting another technological revolution whose consequences extend far beyond science and industry.

ROME, July 1 (IPS) - When Roberto Savio begins talking about The Global Citizen Handbook, he does not begin with the book itself.

TOKYO, Japan, May 25 (IPS) - The relationship between Japan and Kazakhstan is often described in terms of diplomacy, investment and regional cooperation. But at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty, it deserves to be understood in broader terms: as a partnership linking cities, resources, technology and peace.

TOKYO, Japan, April 7 (IPS) - As tensions surrounding Iran deepen and uncertainty spreads across global energy markets, Japan is once again confronting a structural weakness: its heavy dependence on Middle Eastern oil.