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Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 5, 2019

Why people fall for fake news isn't simple

Scientists are weirdly divided over what seems like common sense.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 4, 2019

Researchers say breakthrough in plant engineering could boost productivity and feed millions more people

A new process that adjusts the way plants turn sunlight into energy could boost the yields of many staple crops by 40 percent, potentially feeding hundreds of millions more people, American researchers said Thursday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 3, 2019

'America First' puts Syria last

The Syria departure may be even more damaging than past U.S. premature declarations of victory because Trump has no idea what he is doing.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 30, 2018

Celebrating New Year's the island way

On the small island where I live in the middle of Japan's Seto Inland Sea, new year celebrations are stalwart traditional. Preparations start a week before when the holiday spirit wafts in on sea breezes tinted with chilling temperatures. The island holds a community rice-pounding event to make kagami...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2018

The year in energy — moving backward

The ugly truth is that the emissions battle will be won or lost (and at present is being lost) thanks to the energy policies of China, India, the U.S. and Russia.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2018

China at the crossroads

Deng's refusal to truly liberalize China has imposed enduring costs on the country, which increasingly bends reality to the illusions that it propagates.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 28, 2018

Invest in education and save the economy

Giving birth to dynamic companies in Japan will require nothing but education that values and nurtures extraordinary individuality.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Dec 28, 2018

From obese to starving, nutrition crisis prompts SOS call for new approach

With billions of people either starving or obese, poor diets have become a leading cause of disease and death, prompting calls for a new approach in 2019 to how food is produced to stem rising rates of malnutrition.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 27, 2018

The market swoon isn't all about Donald Trump

It is demonstrating, though, just how poorly he will probably react when faced with real adversity.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Dec 26, 2018

For Nigel Farage and a Brexit pollster, a world of gamblers and gambling

Behind the luxury hotels lining London's Park Lane, just across from a service entrance, Nigel Farage stood outside a squat office building streaked with soot. Britain's famous anti-European Union campaigner was flanked by a couple of minor sports celebrities and two young women in matching dresses who...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 25, 2018

Nationalism doesn't have to be a dirty word

Like any political ideology, nationalism has many faces and some are beneficial and worthy of affirmation.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 25, 2018

Apocalypse Trump may be upon us

With no one left in President Donald Trump's Cabinet who can restrain him, Americans and their allies are staring into the abyss that has been looming since the 2016 election.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 24, 2018

China would do well to remember its friends

By taking all the credit for the country's stunning economic rise, the Communist Party is threatening its continued prosperity.
JAPAN / History / Defining the Heisei Era
Dec 22, 2018

Defining the Heisei Era: When communication in Japan went mobile

The launch of a pager known as the Pocket Bell marked the birth of texting and mobile communications in Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Dec 19, 2018

For me, 2018 was the year Japan began to listen

One day next year, and the year after that, someone will ask me in the course of a conversation why I decided to stay in Japan. I know this because it ranks among the top questions I'm asked — by Japanese and non-Japanese alike — since I arrived here back in 2004. And on the day I'm asked, my answer...
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Dec 18, 2018

Wondrous extinct flying pterosaurs sported rudimentary feathers, China fossil study reveals

A microscopic examination of fossils from China has revealed that the fur-like body covering of pterosaurs, the remarkable flying reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs, was actually made up of rudimentary feathers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 15, 2018

Spreading the word of the philosophers of nothingness

The Kyoto School of philosophy — which offers stimulating ideas, a distinctive critique of Western philosophy and applies a Western methodology to Japanese thought — represents Japan's greatest contribution to world philosophy in the 20th century.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 15, 2018

Biodiversity wins, even when all seems lost

Tiny frogs and lizards surviving in Haiti's last splinters of forest show that even the most devastated areas can be redeemed.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 14, 2018

Treat China like the bully it is

Canada would do well to remember that deference to Beijing invites bullying, while standing up to it draws respect.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 13, 2018

The strengthening case against Trump

The House of Representatives' incoming Democratic committee chairs insist that they have no interest in impeaching President Donald Trump, but as they continue to investigate his administration's wrongdoings, that outcome may become inevitable.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 11, 2018

2018 was the year in Japan that saw the stage sing, while contemporary drama barely made a squeak

Musicals have flourished in 2018, with many young stars also helping to sell out straight plays in which they appeared. However, the contemporary drama scene in Japan has been unusually quiet this year in terms of new works and writers.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 10, 2018

More data exposing the U.S. income stagnation myth

Debate over wage growth must reflect solid realities, not politically convenient sound bites.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Dec 10, 2018

Chinese police detain prominent Protestant 'house' church leaders and attendees in Chengdu

Police have detained dozens of churchgoers and leaders of one of China's most prominent Protestant "house" churches, congregation members and activists said, in the latest government action against unregistered religious groups.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / FOCUS
Dec 10, 2018

Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei survived a famine. Can he weather Trump?

At the sprawling Huawei Technologies Co. campus in Shenzhen, the food court's walls are emblazoned with quotes from the company's billionaire founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei. Then there's the research lab that resembles the White House in Washington. Perhaps the most curious thing, though, are three black...
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Dec 7, 2018

George Foreman became business giant after boxing career

Third in a three-part series
Japan Times
BUSINESS / FOCUS
Dec 7, 2018

Race to the bottom? India plans deep dive for seabed minerals

In the 1870 Jules Verne classic "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," underwater explorer Captain Nemo predicted the mining of the ocean floor's mineral bounty: zinc, iron, silver and gold.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 4, 2018

A new immigration policy for Japan

Japan should focus on accepting highly skilled immigrants and leverage domestic resources to solve its shortage of unskilled labor.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Dec 1, 2018

23 days later: Getting arrested in Japan

Freedom is easy to take for granted — at least until it is taken away from you without warning.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami