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EDITORIALS
Jan 17, 2010

No reason to have kids

A Cabinet Office survey late last year found that more than 40 percent of Japanese feel there is no reason to have kids. That's the highest percentage ever. Of women in their 20s and 30s, more than 60 percent said they don't feel the need to have children after marriage. This increasing indifference...
JAPAN
Jan 15, 2010

Airport wars roil Kansai region

OSAKA — Two years into his term, Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto continues to enjoy high popularity among voters, with some local media polls showing his approval rating at almost 70 percent, due largely to his personality and cost-cutting steps.
JAPAN
Jan 15, 2010

Tokyo library reaching out to foreign community

Whether to read a Pulitzer Prize-winning author in English, flick through global editions of Vogue magazine or delve into foreign encyclopedias, the Tokyo Metropolitan Library wants more foreigners to visit and take advantage of its free multilingual resources.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BY THE GLASS
Jan 15, 2010

Reinventing the classics

"In Italy I already had a job and family. If I had come to Japan and everything finished, I could have easily gone back to Italy because I had a place there. Coming here was a bit like a game and it still is for me," says TV celebrity Girolamo Panzetta.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 15, 2010

Days of being wild

HOLLYWOOD — 'I think 'Where the Wild Things Are' is a fantastic book," says writer-director Spike Jonze.
Reader Mail
Jan 10, 2010

China using leverage to beat West

Regarding Brahma Chellaney's Jan. 6 article, "China wants it both ways": It saddens people like me of Indian descent to see people like Chellaney write as if they were clinging to feelings of "brown-man inferiority" long after the fall of colonialism and the decline of the British Empire.
COMMENTARY
Jan 10, 2010

Why not search body cavities?

LONDON — It is the duty of all public officials to "do something" whenever a new threat appears, even if there is nothing sensible to be done. If they don't make a show of solving the problem, the media will punish them severely. So we have had a vigorous U.S. government response to the recent apprehension...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 9, 2010

Europe's latest revolution

STOCKHOLM — History often moves with small steps, but such steps sometimes turn out to have big implications.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 8, 2010

Yang Fudong on the beauty of living

Based in Shanghai, Chinese artist Yang Fudong has gained worldwide recognition for his multimedia installations incorporating material shot on richly textured, black-and-white 35 mm film. His five-part film cycle "Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest" (2003-07) was one of the defining works in the...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2010

Keys to keeping your New Year's resolutions

MELBOURNE — Did you make any New Year's resolutions? Perhaps you resolved to get fit, to lose weight, to save more money or to drink less alcohol. Or your resolution may have been more altruistic: to help those in need, or to reduce your carbon footprint. But are you keeping your resolution?
JAPAN / LOOMING CHALLENGES
Jan 6, 2010

Japan urged to exploit its tech, pop culture

Last of five parts
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 6, 2010

Facing a time of many tests

LONDON — This is a tough time to be a decision-maker. We live in an era of low predictability. The world appears in constant flux. The challenges are immense. And most of all, there is in many instances a clash between the correct short-term politics and the correct long-term policy.
BUSINESS
Jan 6, 2010

Department stores fight clunker image

Once upon a time, department stores were magnets for shoppers hungry for fashion and big-ticket luxury brand goods.
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2010

2010 make or break for the DPJ

2009 will be remembered as a turning point in postwar politics, a time when voters ousted the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party and put the Democratic Party of Japan in power.
Reader Mail
Dec 31, 2009

One big difference is in renting

I couldn't help but laugh at Michiko Goff's Dec. 27 letter, "Act intelligently to make friends." She complains about discrimination in the United States without giving a single specific example, then proceeds to tell foreigners in Japan that any discrimination against them is not real — that Japanese...
Reader Mail
Dec 31, 2009

Convenient mental illness hedge

It is irritating that whenever there is an attack on a public figure or a violent public security incident — a man injuring the Italian prime minister, a woman rushing the pope, a school gunman on a killing spree, a foiled airplane bomber, an armed hostage taker, a suicide bomber, an intruder in the...
JAPAN
Dec 30, 2009

Will warmer ties burn Taiwan?

For many countries China is a key partner in international relations, whether in recovering from the financial crisis or tackling climate change. And this is no less true for Taiwan, whose government is sidelining long-term political disputes with the mainland for the sake of improving economic ties....
LIFE / Digital
Dec 30, 2009

Cold War encryption is unrealistic in today's trenches

Sometimes mediocre encryption is better than strong encryption, and sometimes no encryption is better still.
EDITORIALS
Dec 29, 2009

The past year of newness

The Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation's annual kanji of the year for 2009 is, appropriately, " " (shin), meaning "new." This kanji, chosen by national ballot and announced in December at Kyoto's Kiyomizu temple, reflects the win of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which ended a half-century...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 29, 2009

Tokyo homeless shelter opens

A holiday-season shelter set up by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government opened Monday in Shibuya Ward to take in hundreds of laid-off workers.
Reader Mail
Dec 27, 2009

Opinion could use greater diversity

I was shocked by the opinions expressed in the Dec. 22 article "Level playing field for immigrants: responses" — except by the opinion from the person whose name was withheld, who possibly suffered real discrimination.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Dec 27, 2009

Usual conformist cliches about the Japanese

NEW YORK — So Roger Cohen, a relatively new columnist with The New York Times, concluded after a brief stay in Tokyo earlier this month that Japan is a society laid low by "a tremendous conformity" and trivialized by "otaku" ("Japanese Obsessions," Dec. 14).

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight