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Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 17, 2015

Monitor says Syrian army killed six in toxic gas attack; military denies it

A group monitoring the Syrian civil war said Tuesday government forces carried out a poison gas attack that killed six people in the northwest, and medics posted videos of children suffering what they said was suffocation.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 17, 2015

Investor Dan Loeb takes on Japan's mega-bot

Hedge-fund manager Dan Loeb's budding success with Fanuc hints change may be afoot in corporate Japan.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 8, 2015

Abducted by aliens? Stolen by Russians? MH370 theories abound

One year on from the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, an extraordinary amount of key data remains unknown — fueling conspiracy theories and heated online debate about one of aviation's biggest mysteries.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Mar 7, 2015

Flight of the swan offers natural lesson

Each year the "angels of winter" wing in and out of Japan. They arrive, clamoring, on the gnarled back of autumn storms, their wings and the first snowflakes flurry together as if they, too, are an integral part of the changing season.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Society / FOCUS
Mar 6, 2015

In North Korea's war on smoking, Kim is no poster boy

North Korea executes officials and arbitrarily imprisons those seen as enemies of the state. Its citizens struggle to put food on the table.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 4, 2015

No, Obama, Russia's economy isn't in tatters

It's time to bury the expectation that Russia's economy will fall apart under pressure from falling oil prices and Western sanctions, and that Russians, angered by a drop in their living standards, will rise up and sweep President Vladimir Putin out of office.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2015

Don't expect Twitter feeds to tame terrorism

The Obama administration should stop the gaseous rhetoric about countering terrorism by elevating digital footprints. Twitter feeds from the State Department won't tame terrorism.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 28, 2015

China inadvertently promotes Islamic extremism

March 1, 2014, was China's 9/11. That was the day Islamic Uighur terrorists slashed their way into the collective consciousness of the country's ethnic Han majority.
WORLD
Feb 25, 2015

U.S. missionary kidnapped in central Nigeria

U.S. missionary Phyllis Sortor was kidnapped by several people in the central Nigerian state of Kogi on Monday, according to her church.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2015

Blame Obama for Libya's descent into chaos

U.S. President Barack Obama destroyed Libya, just as George W. Bush destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan earlier. Obama doesn't deserve a historical pass.
JAPAN / History
Feb 19, 2015

Panel named to advise Abe on WWII statement

The 16-member advisory body will consider what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should say in his planned statement to mark 70 years since World War II's end.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 17, 2015

How two small rocks stop Japan and South Korea from getting along

They were once a source of fortune for Japanese fishermen hunting sea lions and abalone, but now the pair of remote rocks in the Sea of Japan are preventing Japan and South Korea from getting along.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 11, 2015

No-frills dramatist casts Japan in a different light

The title of Yudai Kamisato's new work "+51 Aviacíon, San Borja" references his grandmother's address in Lima and the international telephone dialling code of Peru — but that only hints at the unusually cosmopolitan background of this 32-year-old Japanese playwright and director who also has relatives...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 10, 2015

Obama's Middle East fantasy

For all of the problems posed by significant U.S. ground forces in the Middle East, it is the only option right now if President Barack Obama wishes to stop the advance of the Islamic State group without aiding the advance of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Japan Times
WORLD
Feb 9, 2015

Jordan says it waged 56 strikes in three days against Islamic State targets, degrading 20% of jihadis' capabilities

Jordan's air force chief said on Sunday his country's jet fighters had conducted 56 bombing raids in three days against Islamic State militants in northeast Syria, targeting key bases and arms depots.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 26, 2015

Protecting a tolerant society

How people who champion tolerance should deal with intolerant people who violently attempt to force certain values on others is one of the thorniest challenges for a pluralistic democracy.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jan 23, 2015

Netanyahu accepts Boehner's invite to address U.S. Congress in March on Iran

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Thursday he will address the U.S. Congress during a March visit likely to drive home differences with the Obama administration over whether to impose additional sanctions on Tehran.
COMMENTARY
Jan 19, 2015

New Sri Lankan president has delicate balancing act

Sri Lankans have sprung a surprise with their commitment to democracy. They have thrown out a strongman president who had brought an end to a three-decade-long civil war and restored high economic growth.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2015

Japan’s Muslims dismayed by latest Charlie cover but united against violence

Japan's Muslim community speaks out on magazine Charlie Hebdo's defiant decision to place a Prophet Muhammad cartoon on the cover of its latest issue after last week's massacre.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 5, 2015

Why Japan should embrace Angelina Jolie's 'Unbroken'

The attacks on Angelina Jolie's just-released film 'Unbroken' — which is much less about Japanese brutality against an American POW than the resilience of the human spirit — appear part of a revisionist recrudescence under the Abe administration.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2014

Wanted: brides for millions of Chinese men

A fast-growing underclass is sure to pose an array of challenges for China. The victims are the millions of poor, mostly rural men, who cannot meet familial and social expectations that a man marry and start a family because of the country's skewed demographics.
EDITORIALS
Dec 27, 2014

2014: a year of conservative gains

The year 2014 was full of unexpected events, but none helped to jolt Japan's economy, politics or society out of a sense of being stalled.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2014

End of the Facebook Revolution

When Facebook has already blocked an announcement inviting Muscovites to attend a January rally in support of an anti-corruption activist, imagine what it would do — or, for all we know, has already done — for the U.S. government.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 25, 2014

Now boastful Japan not really in tune with what visitors want, foreign expert warns

Japan's self-professed "omotenashi" (spirit of selfless hospitality) is often misinterpreted to force predetermined services on foreign visitors, says one longtime observer.
BASKETBALL
Dec 18, 2014

FIBA chief Baumann strikes tough tone on JBA ban

FIBA secretary general Patrick Baumann repeatedly stated that the Japan Basketball Association's "lack of vision" is a fundamental problem stunting the sport's development throughout the nation.
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2014

More than 20,000 bras recalled in Japan over injury fears

A defect can cause underwires to protrude from holes in the fabric while the undergarments are being worn, the Japanese division of lingerie-maker Triumph International says.
COMMENTARY / Japan / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 13, 2014

Abe's secrets law undermines Japan's democracy

On Dec. 10, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's new special secrets law took effect despite overwhelming public opposition.

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers