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Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 23, 2021

COVID-19 gives America a chance to fix welfare

The COVID-19 relief effort has finally helped Americans to realize that the government can just send them cash, and that this makes their life better.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 23, 2021

How Trump set up Biden for success

As his administration clarifies its economic agenda, it's becoming clear that Biden's true legacy lies not in rolling back Trump's policies but in refining them.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 23, 2021

Hands up, hands off: China blames U.S. for troubled relationship

Maintaining that Beijing has no role or responsibility for troubles in U.S.-China relations will guarantee that those problems get worse.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2021

How the big COVID-19 rebound keeps getting delayed, a bit

The next couple of months are going to be tough. The rosy prognosis for things to really get better has been shunted to the middle of the year.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2021

Bankers love their Porsche 911s. So let them buy shares.

While Porsche's margins aren't quite as stellar as Ferrari's, in 2019 it supplied the VW group with a more than ample 4.2 billion euros of operating profit.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 20, 2021

Japan’s media join forces in rare show of solidarity to attack Mori over sexist remarks

Domestic reporters don't pull any punches in the fallout from the former Tokyo Olympic chief's cluelessness.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 20, 2021

Line between solitude and withdrawal becomes blurred in Japan amid pandemic

More than half of the nationwide hikikomori population of 1.15 million are between 40 and 64 years old.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2021

Flying taxis are an extremely expensive ride

Despite their cost, air taxis could soon become reality thanks to advances in batteries, software and lightweight materials.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 19, 2021

Toyota broke its just-in-time rule just in time for the chip shortage

In contrast to the rest of the auto industry, Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. said it wasn't expecting a shortfall of semiconductors to affect its production.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 19, 2021

Smell in the time of COVID-19

Smell, as much of the world is discovering in the pandemic, has long been our most underrated sense.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 18, 2021

Bitcoin’s volatility should burn investors. It hasn’t.

Investors appear to have deftly navigated Bitcoin's harrowing highs and lows, buying on the way down and selling on the way up.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 18, 2021

Spin doctors target Hong Kongers seeking U.K. visas

The U.K. is being portrayed in China-friendly Hong Kong newspaper editorials and online chat rooms as an undesirable place to live.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 17, 2021

The shapeshifting coronavirus may not be able to mutate forever

It’s been about a year since the early coronavirus alarms were raised, and despite a decline in infections, new fears are rising up. New COVID-19 variants are making pessimists worry that an even bigger next wave may be coming.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 17, 2021

COVID-19 vaccine distribution has a fairness problem

Perfection is impossible. But there's a way to do justice to both science and ethics: Focus vaccines on geographic hot spots and the elderly.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 17, 2021

Twitter should stick to its guns in India

In its battles with India's government and others around the world, Twitter needn't surrender its principles too easily.
Agriculture minister Taku Eto answers reporters questions at the at the Prime Minister's Office on Monday.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 21, 2025

Why Ishiba pulled a 180 on the gaffe-stricken farm minister

Taku Eto is the first minister to fall since the Japanese leader formed his Cabinet last October
As Japan confronts global economic shifts and mounting fiscal pressures, its upcoming election risks being consumed by a stale, politically fraught debate over the consumption tax.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 21, 2025

Don’t reopen the ‘demon's gate’ debate in Japan

As Japan confronts global economic shifts and mounting fiscal pressures, its upcoming election risks being consumed by a stale, politically fraught debate over the consumption tax.
Britain's King Charles inspects a guard of honor in Edinburgh, Scotland, last July. The rising cost of the British monarchy, marked by increased taxpayer funding and limited transparency, is prompting questions about whether the public is getting fair value for supporting the royals.
COMMENTARY / World
May 21, 2025

A king’s ransom: The eye-watering cost of Charles III

Brits should be told how much their royals’ extravagant lifestyles are costing them.
China’s prolonged real estate slump has pushed housing construction back to early 2000s levels, sharply cutting cement production and offering a rare climate reprieve from one of the world’s biggest sources of carbon emissions.
COMMENTARY / World
May 21, 2025

China’s building crash is rewinding 22 years of growth

The real estate slump may be bad for the economy, but it’s good for the planet — cement is one of the most polluting substances on Earth.
Pakistan's army chief Gen. Asim Munir salutes after laying wreath on the martyrs' monument during a guard of honor ceremony at General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 22, 2025

Support for Pakistan army chief surges after India conflict

A survey conducted after the conflict by a local pollster found that 93% of respondents felt their opinion of the military had improved.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba takes part in deliberations on pension system reform in the House of Representatives on Tuesday. Ishiba’s comparison of Japan’s finances to Greece’s during a tax debate drew backlash for spooking markets and misrepresenting the country’s debt situation.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 22, 2025

Ishiba's Greece debt comparison risks deeper crisis

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s comparison of Japan’s finances to Greece’s during a tax debate drew backlash for spooking markets and misrepresenting the country’s debt situation.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's Cabinet saw its approval rate rewriting the lowest level in May since he took office last October last year.
JAPAN / Politics
May 22, 2025

Ishiba Cabinet approval falls to 20.9% in new poll

The Cabinet's disapproval rating rose 1.7 points to 52.9%.
The U.S. debt crisis can’t be fixed without reforming entitlements, and that means Americans must retire later and pay more in taxes.
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2025

To fix the U.S. debt problem, Americans must retire later

The House’s proposed $3.7 trillion tax bill isn’t what sparked that Moody’s downgrade — it was the runaway growth of entitlement spending.
With Russia holding the upper hand in Ukraine and its people likely to support a favorable peace, why is the Kremlin unwilling to negotiate?
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 22, 2025

Russia’s two minds on Ukraine

Russian people used to have savings; today, they spend whatever they can get their hands on and even take out loans.
After establishing Lagoon Brewery in 2021, Yosuke Tanaka began making export-only "nihonshu" (Japanese sake) and later, "craft sake," a new genre of sake that isn't bound by the rules of traditional sakemaking.
LIFE / Food & Drink
May 25, 2025

Brewed from rice, water and tomatoes: The growth of ‘craft sake’

Hampered yet inspired by the strict regulations for new brewers, a growing breed of sake producers are making the beverage on their own creative terms.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
WORLD
May 23, 2025

Netanyahu accuses France, Britain and Canada of 'emboldening' Hamas

The criticism was part of a fightback by the Israeli government against the increasingly heavy international pressure on it over the war in Gaza.
Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate for South Korea's Democratic Party, prepares for the second televised debate for the upcoming presidential election in Seoul on Friday.
BUSINESS / Economy
May 25, 2025

South Korea presidential front-runner Lee suggests extending U.S. tariff talks

Lee Jae-myung said the deadline to reach a deal needs to be reconsidered to find a mutually beneficial agreement between the two allies.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s attempt to punish Harvard by targeting its international students is an unconstitutional power grab aimed at intimidating free institutions and advancing his authoritarian agenda.
COMMENTARY / World
May 25, 2025

Harvard is fighting for much more than foreign students

Trump is trying to break the world’s leading university because he knows that higher education — everywhere — is one of the bulwarks of a free society.
Donald Trump's attempt to bar international students from enrolling at Harvard, along with other actions, undercut America’s image as a land of opportunity, alienating future Asian leaders and diminishing U.S. influence in Asia.
COMMENTARY / World
May 25, 2025

America’s 'wolf warriors' are getting it all wrong in Asia

Trump's actions erode goodwill among future Asian leaders and weaken America's standing in a region once deeply aligned with it.
A house damaged during a Pakistani artillery shelling in Poonch, in India-administered Kashmir, on May 14
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 26, 2025

India and Pakistan battle for global sympathy after border truce

Both sides are sending delegations to global capitals to influence international perception of the conflict, as tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals continue to simmer.

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