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COMMENTARY / World
Jul 8, 2013

Deterring an Asia nuke race

Asia risks sliding into a nuclear arms race, aggravated by underlying mistrust. Potential 'threshold' countries include South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia and Vietnam.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jul 8, 2013

Kanebo recall illustrates built-in resilience of cosmetics industry

Compared to what it made on whitening skin-care products, Kanebo's recall will cost very little.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 7, 2013

Strict rules help U.S. access data traffic on undersea cables

The U.S. government had a problem: Spying in the digital age required access to the fiber-optic cables traversing the world's oceans, carrying torrents of data at the speed of light. And one of the biggest operators of those cables was being sold to an Asian firm, which might complicate American surveillance...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 6, 2013

Crime pays: Vampire squids wriggle free in wink-and-nod world

It seems the financial world lurches from scandal to scandal as if coated with Teflon, shrugging off demands for accountability.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Jul 6, 2013

'Price tag' vandalism attacks on Muslim settlements in Israel on the rise

Ibrahim Hamza was up before first light. When he went out to his truck, he thought it was a simple flat tire. But it didn't take long for Hamza, from one of the founding Muslim families who settled this village west of Jerusalem centuries ago, to realize the tires of 28 vehicles on his street had been...
BUSINESS
Jul 5, 2013

Bankers' group to ratchet up oversight of Tibor

The Japanese Bankers Association will step up oversight of the country's benchmark interbank lending rates as part of global efforts to tighten supervision in the wake of the Libor rate-rigging scandal.
JAPAN
Jul 3, 2013

Finds raise toxic chemical suspicions at ex-Kadena site

The Okinawa Defense Bureau and the city of Okinawa uncover seven more barrels at a former U.S. base site that may have been used to hold toxic chemicals during the Vietnam War.
Reader Mail
Jul 3, 2013

Christian mentality showing

It's only necessary to look at the personal, seemingly malevolent sarcasm of Frank O'Brien's June 23 letter, "Right to express religious views," and Jennifer Kim's June 23 letter, "Mild wisecrack in comparison," to see what is wrong with the Christian mentality.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 3, 2013

Rights activists demand end to exploitative trainee program

Japan has long drawn criticism from global watchdogs for failing to curb human trafficking, perhaps most conspicuously when it comes to foreign women brought in to work in the sex trade.
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 1, 2013

Japan envoys among U.S. 'spy targets'

Tokyo will 'strongly demand' an explanation from Washington about reports that Japanese diplomats in the U.S. were 'targets' of American spying, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga says.
JAPAN
Jun 29, 2013

Abe wants to gut public protections: expert

If the Liberal Democratic Party succeeds in rewriting the Constitution, it would severely scale back fundamental human rights and strip the public of various civil liberties, a prominent constitutional scholar warns.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Jun 29, 2013

Global protest grows as citizens lose faith in politics

The demonstrations in Brazil began after a small rise in bus fares triggered mass protests. Within days this had become a nationwide movement whose concerns had spread far beyond fares: more than a million people were on the streets shouting about everything from corruption to the cost of living to the...
Reader Mail
Jun 27, 2013

Basically a case of bad manners

Allow me to express my weariness with Drusilla de Lanor, who in her June 13 letter, "No offense taken to 'that guy,'" called my view bigoted. A careful reading of my June 9 letter, "An offensive religious reference," will show that I do not claim to be a Christian.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jun 24, 2013

Abe's rhetoric reveals a growth strategy aimed at global conquest

The greatly hyped "third arrow" of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's economic plans has fallen spectacularly by the wayside. The stock prices on which Abe & Co. had staked their all began falling even as he was explaining his economic strategy in a speech.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 24, 2013

Furigana — for when you need a little help with kanji

While watching a variety program on NTV over lunch a few weeks ago, I happened to see the word 儚い (hakanai) flash up on the screen.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 24, 2013

White House, NASA want help in asteroid hunt

The White House and NASA are asking the public for help finding asteroids that potentially could slam into the Earth with catastrophic consequences.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 21, 2013

How top lowbrow U.S. humor translates in Japan

Somewhere in the history of American cinema, someone (maybe John Waters?) decided that gross and profane and funny could all sit on the same park bench and start up a friendship. That was way back in the 1970s.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jun 18, 2013

The 'Sunny' side of Taiyo Matsumoto

The Toronto Comics Arts Festival, which celebrated its 10th anniversary this year, has of late made its name bringing over cutting-edge Japanese artists for signings, live drawing sessions and speaking events. The atmosphere at this year's event, held in May, in many ways like an independent film festival,...
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 15, 2013

Clinton re-enters limelight, plans charitable work — for now

In her first major public appearance since stepping down as secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton embraced key pillars of President Barack Obama's domestic agenda Thursday and said she will strive to act as an envoy between businesses, nonprofit entities and the federal government.
JAPAN
Jun 14, 2013

Okinawa pitches Futenma 'dispersal'

Okinawa contacted the office of the U.S. secretary of defense earlier this week with proposals to relocate the contingent at U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to other parts of Japan outside the prefecture, saying there are 35 commercial airports and military facilities, from Kyushu to Hokkaido,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 13, 2013

The trouble within Islam

There is a problematic strain within Islam, and we have to be honest about it. At its heart is a view of religion that is not compatible with pluralistic societies.
Reader Mail
Jun 13, 2013

No offense taken to 'that guy'

When I spotted the June 9 letter titled "An offensive religious reference" and noticed that Amy Chavez's June 1 column, "Everyone's own path to enlightenment," was mentioned, I wondered if I had slipped into another dimension.
COMMENTARY / World / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 9, 2013

Everything under heaven: Big China rattles region

China's neighbors may have half-believed Beijing's previous "smile diplomacy" and frequent reassurances that its rise posed no threat to regional peace and stability — but now everyone understands what hegemonic aspirations look like.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 9, 2013

T.S. Eliot's life in letters

In this fourth volume of collected letters, the limitations of the project show up clearly. T.S. Eliot's correspondence documents his life but rarely expresses it.
Reader Mail
Jun 9, 2013

An offensive religious reference

Regarding Amy Chavez's June 1 column, "Everyone's own path to enlightenment": Chavez should be ashamed of herself.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 6, 2013

Mono no aware: subtleties of understanding

The essence of the 'Mono no aware and Japanese Beauty' exhibition, currently at the Suntory Museum of Art, is the appreciation of things in the shadow of their future absence.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 31, 2013

Widow in farmer suicide sues Tepco

A Filipino woman whose Japanese husband committed suicide after his dairy farming business was decimated by the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster is suing Tokyo Electric Power Co. for about ¥126 million.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami