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COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2014

China's anti-Kim campaign

The next target of China's autocrats, already waging an undeclared war over territory against multiple neighboring countries, is likely to be fellow communist state North Korea, now an estranged ally.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 30, 2013

Where the wild things are: the animal social network

Stumpy is a hulking fixture in seas around Ningaloo Reef off the coast of Western Australia. Photographed there often, he has a tranquil, inquisitive demeanor — despite his 10-ton heft.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 28, 2013

Names of 2013 we're unlikely to forget

Social media continues to undermine the influence of the more traditional kind exemplified by television and print publications, so my choices of most notable public phenomena of 2013 are qualified by the notion that maybe people aren't paying as much attention to them as I might think.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Dec 11, 2013

Putin hand-picks loyalist to head new press agency

President Vladimir Putin tightened his grip on Russia's news media by abolishing the RIA Novosti wire service and handing control of its successor to a controversial television anchor.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Dec 10, 2013

Shueisha manga push hard into the global market

One week before Thanksgiving on Nov. 28, readers of The New York Times were greeted by a spiky-haired, wild-eyed manga character named Monkey D. Luffy, his fists clenched and chest bare, charging forward as if the newsprint could barely contain him. Behind him in massive text screamed the words: "Hey...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 6, 2013

Shin-Okubo, window on a sad regional rift

The crowds at Tokyo's Koreatown have been replaced by a small but strident group of anti-Korean protesters who are turning it into a barometer of Japan-Korea relations.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 1, 2013

Who is Xi? Chinese leader enigma to world

In early November, China's most powerful man, Xi Jinping, stepped into a rustic farmhouse while on an inspection tour in far-flung Hunan province. The occupants' sole electrical appliance, a fluorescent light bulb, burned overhead. Shi Pazhuan, the family matriarch, was confused. "What should I call...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Nov 18, 2013

Japan's readers slower to make e-book leap

According to the media, the e-book era in Japan began in 2010, with the debut of Apple Inc.'s iPad, Sony Corp.'s Sony Reader and other e-book services.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 15, 2013

U.S. bills would curb tracking of kids on Net

What if children used a more private Internet, where it would be harder to collect information about them and where they could erase embarrassing photos, comments and videos that could one day come back to haunt them?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 6, 2013

'Absence' makes Mroué's ghostly work even stronger

Rabih Mroué is an internationally renowned Lebanese actor, director and playwright whose work often probes into representations of the real in an age of digital narratives — particularly in the context of conflict and revolution in the Middle East. His work is marked by its continual reworking of...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 29, 2013

The sectarian war at hand: redrawing the Mideast again

Groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, a powerful component of Syria's savage war, could not have moved with such ease if it had not been for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Society / ANALYSIS
Oct 3, 2013

As Xi tightens grip, hopes for China reforms vanish

After Xi Jinping took over as head of China's Communist Party in December, some liberals dared to hope that change was in store for the world's most populous nation.
LIFE / Digital
Oct 1, 2013

Apple has a secret weapon in iOS7, iPhone5s

When Steve Jobs was still with us, many commentators — yours truly included — used to complain about the "reality distortion field" that surrounded Apple's charismatic leader. Those in attendance when Jobs launched the devices and services (iPod, iTunes, OS X, iMac, MacBook, iPhone and iPad) that...
Reader Mail
Sep 25, 2013

Keeping moral issues in context

Kudos to The Japan Times for running Michelle Boorstein's Washington Post piece, "Savvy pope wooing the Catholic middle" (Sept. 21), a reasonably accurate treatment of Pope Francis' interview printed recently in the Jesuit magazine America.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 21, 2013

After the bid, critics sound off on Olympics

During the week following the announcement in Buenos Aires that Tokyo would host the 2020 Olympic Games, the Japanese media was saturated with news of the capital's celebratory reaction. NHK, which will broadcast the Games, was particularly enthusiastic, leading every news report with a long Olympic-related...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / INNOVATIVE CITY FORUM
Sep 17, 2013

Creating healthier ecosystems in future cities by rethinking urban areas from scratch

The mass production of affordable automobiles is perhaps one of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Sep 16, 2013

Self-harm blogs can pose problems for those fighting depression

Self-harm blogs shelter in a dark, desperate corner of the Internet that few of us will ever see. But 14-year-old Anouschka, a baby-faced blogger, has lived here for months, collecting photos of slashed wrists and razor blades, reading grim, adolescent poems about death and loneliness — and meeting...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2013

Tanks, not leak, main problem at Fukushima

The radioactive water tainting the sea from the Fukushima No. 1 plant may be generating headlines, but an expert says its storage tanks pose a greater danger.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 1, 2013

Why Bo Xilai stole the show instead of the CCP

Bo Xilai may be heading to jail, but he retains some chance of political rehabilitation should things change dramatically in China.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2013

Chinese democracy gets help

Despite the 'Great Firewall,' that requires anti-block software to cross, the Internet has already facilitated a certain level of democratic development in China.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 27, 2013

Incredible stories that should not be forgotten

Foreign journalists charged with covering Japan's devastating March 2011 disasters faced an enormous challenge: sensitively expressing the human tragedy while accurately assessing the vast amount of real-time data on the crisis.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Jul 19, 2013

That's me in the picture: how 'selfies' became a global craze

It starts with a certain angle: A smartphone tilted at 45 degrees just above your eyeline is generally deemed the most forgiving. Then a light source: the flattering beam of a backlit window or a bursting supernova of flash reflected in a bathroom mirror, as preparations are under way for a night out....
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 14, 2013

Rebels fear 'side war' with jihadists in Syria

Syrian rebels said Saturday they fear being sucked into a "side war" with jihadists as claims about an overnight attack on a weapons depot at their Idlib headquarters threatened to push the opposition deeper into a spiral of infighting.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Jul 9, 2013

Can METI's ¥50 billion fund unfreeze 'Cool Japan'?

Naysaying is almost always risk-free, especially if you do it online. If you're a cynic, you're usually right, and if you're wrong, you can just delete those errant tweets and posts and join the party.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 1, 2013

Voting for idols is bigger than politics

Elsewhere in the world, the kind of sōsenkyo (総選挙, general election) that fires up public interest and garners media attention is one where political parties compete for national office. In Japan, however, the sōsenkyo of aidoru gurūpu (アイドルグループ, idol group) AKB48 tends to grab...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 9, 2013

Dark sides of Toyota's drive to be No. 1

Like most corporate giants, Toyota isn't all squeaky clean. Yet in their book 'Toyota no Shotai' ('The True Colors of Toyota') published in Japanese in 2006, Hajime Yokota and Makoto Sataka catalog the Japanese media's timidity when it comes to covering the nation's top advertiser.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 4, 2013

A term for Abe's ilk? Well, nonliberal

Foreign media and overseas Japan experts largely use 19th- and 20th-century labels to describe Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and current Japanese politics led by his Liberal Democratic Party — "right-wing," "hawkish," "conservative" and "nationalist."
COMMENTARY / World
May 3, 2013

Selective rights, illegal wars

One cannot help thinking these days that the legal, political and even moral blind spots that exist in the United States must always somehow involve Muslims.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 28, 2013

The story of the Occupy movements by one of the leaders

I'm torn. I can't work out whether the Occupy movements were responsible for their own demise; and I can't work out whether I've had enough of reading tomes about the brave new world of revolutionary consensus-building.

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan