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JAPAN
Oct 27, 2009

Rhetorical Hatoyama opens Diet

Calling his mission the "bloodless Heisei restoration," Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama kicked off a 36-day extraordinary Diet session Monday pledging to revamp postwar politics and establish a society based on his notion of fraternity.
JAPAN
Oct 27, 2009

By-election wins keep DPJ sails full

The Democratic Party of Japan's victories Sunday in two Upper House by-elections indicate Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's new administration is still on its honeymoon since the DPJ's landslide victory in the Aug. 30 general election.
JAPAN
Oct 21, 2009

DPJ wants Cabinet to call policy shots, not juniors

It all began with a single notice handed out last month to Democratic Party of Japan lawmakers.
EDITORIALS
Oct 14, 2009

Nobel invests hope in leadership

U.S. President Barack Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize after less than nine months in office. His critics at home and abroad say the Norwegian Nobel Committee's decision came too early since Mr. Obama cannot yet claim any concrete achievement in dealing with challenging global issues.
CULTURE / Film
Oct 9, 2009

Osamu Dazai: genius, but no saint

Major Japanese cultural figures often become subjects of films when big birth or death anniversaries roll around. The hero (far more rarely, the heroine) is usually portrayed as a sainted genius, tragic or otherwise. Osamu Dazai, however, was one such figure who didn't fit the saint template.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 7, 2009

The Middle East and Iran issue

The small country of Lebanon lies at the center of the Middle East jigsaw. Its labyrinthine internal politics reflect and connect with all the complexities of the region and the surrounding countries.
COMMENTARY
Sep 25, 2009

China's two-sided 'miracle' should warn the ebullient

CHANGCHUN/LONDON — Is China the economic locomotive that will lift the world back onto the growth path and help eradicate its vast debts?
COMMENTARY
Sep 20, 2009

Divining Japan's new leadership amid the expectations of change

LONDON — On a recent visit to France, I was frequently asked about the results of the Japanese election. Did the results mean that Japan was really changing? Would the new Japanese government increase Japan's influence in the world?
EDITORIALS
Sep 18, 2009

Pardon Mr. Chen to help Taiwan

The conviction and sentencing of former Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian is a troubling development. The life sentence handed down to Mr. Chen is certain to deepen the fissures in an already deeply divided and volatile society. He has appealed the sentence.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Sep 15, 2009

For TV anchor, learning the lingo is key

Gene Otani, a Japanese national who attended an international school in Kobe throughout his youth, had to take Japanese lessons as a salaried worker when he realized he needed more skill in reading and writing.
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Sep 1, 2009

Do you have a message for the next prime minister of Japan?

JAPAN
Aug 31, 2009

Foreigners weigh in on election outcome

Although foreigners couldn't vote in Sunday's election, many were focused on its outcome.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / TAKING A CHANCE
Aug 20, 2009

Starting up Net portal for women turns into lifetime career choice

Kikuko Yano was searching for a job she could do her entire life, and found it in the Internet firm she started on her own.
COMMENTARY
Aug 12, 2009

Seven global lessons from a teachable event

WATERLOO, Ontario — Apparently Sgt. James Crowley's arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. in Boston on July 17 was "a teachable moment." Here are seven lessons relevant to world affairs.
EDITORIALS
Aug 5, 2009

Mrs. Aquino: An icon passes on

She was an unlikely revolutionary. A member not of one but two of the Philippines' most powerful families, Mrs. Corazon Aquino nonetheless led the popular revolt against President Ferdinand Marcos, sweeping him from office and setting an example for "people power" movements around the world ever since....
COMMENTARY
Aug 1, 2009

Tough times for politicians

Democratic governments everywhere are in trouble. In Britain, the Labour government is tottering. In Japan, defeat looms for Prime Minister Taro Aso's Liberal Democratic Party. In Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is clinging on amid a sea of scandal. In France, hyperactive President Nicolas Sarkozy...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 1, 2009

Baseball expert lines up new book on mobsters in Japan

Robert Whiting is best known as an expert on baseball. But he's much more than that. He's also an expert on mobsters in Japan and the sound a radar site makes when it is "spotted" by a U2 spy plane.
EDITORIALS
Jul 29, 2009

DPJ's election promises

The Democratic Party of Japan has announced its manifesto for the Aug. 30 Lower House election. It has two pillars: scheduled measures to directly help households and steps to end bureaucracy-led politics.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 29, 2009

All stimulus roads lead to China

BEIJING — Now that the "green shoots" of recovery have withered, the debate over fiscal stimulus is back with a vengeance. In the United States, those who argue for another stimulus package observe that it was always wishful thinking to believe that a $787 billion package could offset a $3 trillion...
JAPAN
Jul 28, 2009

DPJ platform vows to weaken bureaucrats

With a month to go before the Aug. 30 election, the Democratic Party of Japan unveiled its campaign platform Monday, featuring five main principles centering on a government led by politicians rather than bureaucrats.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jul 27, 2009

Mettle of 'thoroughbreds'

What does Prime Minister Taro Aso have in common with his immediate predecessors — Junichiro Koizumi, Shinzo Abe and Yasuo Fukuda? Each is either a son or a grandson of a well-known politician of the past.
Reader Mail
Jul 23, 2009

A guiding light for the economy

Brahma Chellaney's July 9 article, "Spread of democracy stalls," makes the disturbing prediction that "economies driven by a fusion of autocratic politics and crony, state-guided capitalism could gain the upper hand."
JAPAN
Jul 22, 2009

Aso pulls plug on Lower House

Prime Minister Taro Aso played his ultimate trump card Tuesday and dissolved the Lower House, turning a deaf ear to vociferous opponents of the move from within his own party.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jul 20, 2009

Two brothers competing on Japan's political ladder

One of the major topics of speculation among political observers nowadays is what course of action former internal affairs minister Kunio Hatoyama will take following his revolt against Prime Minister Taro Aso. He will have to make up his mind soon now that the date of the next general election has just...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 19, 2009

Out of step over failed price deal

SYDNEY — Australia is having to rethink its dealings with China following the bizarre jailing in Shanghai of an Australian businessman and a flurry of undercover diplomatic requests for explanations from Canberra to Beijing.
EDITORIALS
Jul 17, 2009

The LDP in disarray

The ruling and opposition blocs are heading for a showdown in the general election as the opposition bloc in the Upper House on Tuesday passed a censure motion against Prime Minister Aso Taro and started boycotting all Diet proceedings. Separately, in the Lower House, the ruling bloc earlier in the day...
COMMENTARY
Jul 9, 2009

Spread of democracy stalls

Has the global spread of democracy run out of steam? For long, but especially since the end of the Cold War, democracy and free markets were touted as the twin answers to most ills. But while free-market tenets have come under strain in the present international financial crisis, with the very countries...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 6, 2009

Price of centralized power

MOSCOW — The emergence of a Kremlin leader, President Dmitry Medvedev, without a KGB background, combined with the economic crisis, has inspired talk that when Barack Obama visits Moscow this week, America's president will be seeing a country on the verge of a new political thaw, a revived perestroika....

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years