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JAPAN / Politics
Feb 7, 2013

Abe presses ahead on collective self-defense

Japanese corporate executives doing business with China as well as diplomats stationed in Japan and neighboring countries are probably breathing a sigh of relief now that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has dialed down his hawkish stance from the campaign trail in December and has instead focused on stimulus...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Feb 3, 2013

Hidetoshi Masunaga: making revolution through the Constitution

On Dec. 14, 2012, two days before the Lower House election in which the Democratic Party of Japan headed by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda was eclipsed as the conservative Liberal Democratic Party swept back to power in a landslide, a one-page advert with a huge banner headline appeared in a vernacular...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 3, 2013

Celebrity bloggers not required to disclose paid endorsements

In December several celebrities were forced to apologize publicly for stating on their personal blogs that they had "won" items on so-called penny auction websites when, in fact, they hadn't.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 1, 2013

Abe says he feels war sex slaves' pain

Facing questions from an opposition lawmaker Thursday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe refused to comment on the government's position on wartime sex slaves, but he did say he feels "heart-breaking pain" when he thinks of how their human rights were violated.
EDITORIALS
Jan 30, 2013

Mr. Abe's strategy

A s the 150-day ordinary Diet session kicked off Monday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivered his first policy speech since becoming prime minister following the Liberal Democratic Party's victory in the Dec. 16 Lower House election. He said Japan is facing crises with regard to the economy, damage from...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jan 28, 2013

Blame it on the hara: harassment vocabulary makes us all victims

Japan has a new hara. No, the nice couple down the hall didn't just have a baby; according to recent news, yet another form of harassment is supposedly becoming a social problem.
Reader Mail
Jan 26, 2013

Sober critique of American ideals

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison's Washington Post article, "Building a better U.S. drone policy," which was printed in The Japan Times on Jan. 17, is a sober, elegant and erudite critique of the "drone wars." That it is written by an American congressman is both encouraging and depressing.
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Jan 22, 2013

Readers' views: Skype's downside for teachers; Senkaku and the ICJ; Arudou's ageist attack on Keene; Abe's nuclear folly

Do we really need to know ages? Re: "Osaka: What are your hopes for yourself, Japan and the world in 2013?" (Views From The Street, Jan. 1):
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LABOR PAINS
Jan 22, 2013

AKB48: Unionize and take back your lost love lives

They started performing on stages in Tokyo's Akihabara electronics district, and today their ubiquity is unrivaled. The current flavors of the month pepper the TV schedules and covers of weekly magazines all year round. In Tokyo, you can't swing a carrot without hitting a giant poster of one or a bunch...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jan 19, 2013

So many small things Japan should be proud of

The new Tokyo Skytree has enjoyed immense popularity and is being credited for giving Japanese people hope for the future. Yes, having with the tallest tower (634 meters) and the second tallest structure in the world, we are all filled with a renewed sense of confirmation that — taller is better!
Reader Mail
Jan 17, 2013

Violence lurks below the veneer

It was interesting to see that The Japan Times happened to publish three directly connected items in the Jan. 13 edition. On the front page was the Kyodo article "High school coach tries to justify abuse of boy" plus a photograph of Japanese Shinto devotees enduring a self-purification test in which...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Jan 14, 2013

Advising Abe on the wisdom of a nuclear restart

Readers offer some advice to the new prime minister on the contentious issue of nuclear power in post-3/11 Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2013

Sign of the Financial Times: Will it sell independence?

Too many years ago, this young reporter was about to move from one of Britain's biggest newspaper groups to a paper with a daily sale of fewer than 200,000 copies. A hard-bitten veteran, who had spent years reporting for the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph pleaded with me over farewell drinks not...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 13, 2013

Magazines struggle to maintain relevance

The print edition of venerable U.S. weekly news magazine Newsweek is no more. From the Jan. 4 issue it relaunched as a digital-only publication.
Reader Mail
Jan 10, 2013

Risk of losing food autonomy

Kudos to Philip Brasor for his illuminating Jan. 6 Media Mix article, "Japan's farming could be going to seed." Too often Japan's Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) dilemma is made out to simply be an industry versus agriculture problem, with the former to gain much and the latter to possibly lose something....
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jan 9, 2013

Energy conservation isn't just for summers any more

More Japanese homes are using electricity for heating purposes.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 8, 2013

U.S. imagination goes wild regarding Iranian 'threat'

Reading the text of a bill that was recently signed into law by U.S. President Barack Obama would instill fear in the hearts of ordinary Americans.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 6, 2013

Complex tales of censorship in 20th-century Japan

THE ART OF CENSORSHIP IN POSTWAR JAPAN, by Kirsten Cather. University of Hawaii Press, 2012, 342 pp., $45.00 (hardcover) REDACTED: The Archives of Censorship in Transwar Japan, by Jonathan E. Abel. University of California Press, 2012, 376 pp., $44.95 (hardcover) Censorship in Japan has long been hot-button...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 4, 2013

Wait out passions of the moment when touching up the Constitution

Now that the Liberal Democratic Party and their allies have won a large majority in Japan's House of Representatives, the issue of constitutional revision is on the table.
Reader Mail
Jan 3, 2013

Purchase of islands questionable

Regarding the Dec. 29 front-page article "China 1950 paper says Senkakus are Japan's": No it doesn't. The document only refers to the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands by their Japanese name. Who is the author of that document, and how does it represent the official position of the Chinese government? And did the...
Reader Mail
Jan 3, 2013

Chongryon students as scapegoats

Comments in the Dec. 29 Kyodo article "Pro-North (Korea) schools to lose tuition waiver" are biased. Contrary to the picture painted in the media, the Chongryon schools are far more accessible than we are led to believe. Most Chongryon schools hold open days and joint events with local Japanese schools...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jan 1, 2013

The year for non-Japanese in '12: a top 10

Back by popular demand, here is JBC's roundup of the top 10 human rights events that most affected non-Japanese (NJ) residents of Japan in 2012, in ascending order.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 26, 2012

Abe taps two women for key posts in LDP

Incoming Prime Minister Shinzo Abe tapped two high-profile female lawmakers Tuesday for the top executive posts of the Liberal Democratic Party in an apparent effort to garner the support of female voters ahead of the Upper House election next summer.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 23, 2012

Public works funds best spent fixing aging infrastructure

Last week's Lower House election was all about what people didn't want — the Democratic Party of Japan — but the issue foremost in voters' minds was the state of the economy, and new prime minister Shinzo Abe has made that his first priority by pledging to boost inflation through monetary easing...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 2012

LDP's nuclear, constitutional stances not ally's

The Liberal Democratic Party and ally New Komeito vowed Wednesday to carry out monetary easing, speed up reconstruction of the disaster-pounded Tohoku region and pursue other key goals after they again form a ruling coalition on Dec. 26.
EDITORIALS
Dec 17, 2012

LDP back in the saddle again

The Liberal Democratic Party, which was badly defeated in the Lower House election in August 2009 and had to give up power to the Democratic Party of Japan after ruling the nation almost without interruption since 1955, made a comeback in Sunday's general election. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 16, 2012

Japan loses its cool as South Korea heats up

Last month, a nationwide survey of 3,000 people by the Cabinet office found that the percentage of Japanese who do not view South Korea on friendly terms rose to 59 percent, up by 23.7 points from 2011. The sharply negative shift appeared to reverse over a decade of warming relations between the two...
Reader Mail
Dec 16, 2012

American protection not needed

Regarding Joseph Jaworski's Dec. 9 letter, "Responsibility for self-protection": First, the idea that Japan's political discourse is on the far left is ludicrous. Japan's major parties are all right of center, including the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, which is likely to regain power in Sunday's...
Reader Mail
Dec 9, 2012

Responsibility for self-protection

Regarding the Dec. 5 editorial "Dangerous moves on supreme law": It is a testament to just how far to the left political discourse is in Japan when the idea that Japan should take responsibility for protecting itself is labeled "dangerous."

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan