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COMMENTARY / World
May 15, 2013

Misplaced pride in conspicuous consumption

Wouldn't you laugh at someone who paid more than 200 times as much as you did for a watch, and ended up with an inferior product? Some lawmakers don't get it.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 12, 2013

Will Mount Fuji celebrate World Heritage status by blowing its top?

On May 1, Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs announced it had received notification that Mount Fuji had been recommended for World Heritage status by the UNESCO-affiliated International Council on Monuments and Sites. Formal approval is expected at the World Heritage Committee meeting in Cambodia next month.
COMMENTARY / World
May 12, 2013

Problems with figuring poor countries' GDP cloud judgments about which policies work

Since we can't be sure whether one poor country's GDP is higher than another's, we should not use GDP alone to determine which policies lead to growth.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 11, 2013

Genesis of a brawl: Decades of Sherpa resentment fuel confrontation on Mount Everest

It's an irresistible contrast. On the one hand, modern mountaineering superstars with their blogs and sponsorship deals, scrapping with outraged Sherpas on the slopes of Everest. On the other, one of the defining images of the 20th century, the photograph of Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary standing...
COMMENTARY / World
May 11, 2013

Attacks in Iraq threatening gains from 'surge'

The places in Iraq where violence has erupted of late are eerily familiar, as many were strongholds of al-Qaida in Iraq at the outset of the American-led 'surge' in 2007.
WORLD / Politics
May 4, 2013

German chancellor urges U.K. to crack down on tax havens

The coalition's plans to crack down on Britain's tax havens were discussed April 13 at a meeting between British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, amid growing concerns in Germany.
Japan Times
WORLD
Apr 29, 2013

Perceptions of brothers don't fit neatly into pre-existing box

Chechen? American? Immigrant? Citizen? Muslim? Boston Marathon bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev may be all of the above, but how Americans attempt to come to grips with the attacks allegedly perpetrated by the brothers has much to do with how Americans identify them.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 25, 2013

Rape and gender discrimination related in India

It is hard to equate India's rapid technological development with practices such as female feticide, the earliest manifestation of violence against women.
JAPAN
Apr 23, 2013

LDP looks to double JET Program's ranks in three years

The number of teachers in the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program might double in three years under a new economic proposal.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 21, 2013

Saving Japan: promoting women's role in the workforce would help

Christine Lagarde, director of the International Monetary Fund, believes women can save Japan. Some would argue they already are, taking on as they do all sorts of responsibilities ranging from mother, wife and caregiver for elderly relatives to employee, volunteer and household finance minister.
Japan Times
WORLD / ANALYSIS
Apr 19, 2013

U.S. immigration proposal 'onerous'

Amid the initial elation from immigration advocates over a new proposal to overhaul U.S. border control laws was a sense of unease over the 844-page bill's core provision: a path to citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally.
JAPAN
Apr 19, 2013

Ome marathoners offer support to fellow runners bombed in Boston

Organizers of Tokyo's Ome Marathon expressed their condolences to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings, stressing they intend to work "hand in hand" with the race's host to help overcome the tragedy.
JAPAN / Media
Apr 14, 2013

Vice magazine hits TV with journo-tourism for hipsters

Vice is a brash Brooklyn-based magazine and international media company, but mostly it's a brand of thinking and marketing that has extended itself over the past decade to a popular website and YouTube channel. With bureaus around the world, Vice makes as much news as it reports: A recent foray involved...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 27, 2013

Lessons from the Iraq War are there for the heeding

Do Obama policymakers really know the economic consequences of beginning military operations in Iran or supplying weapons to Syria's opposition
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2013

Abe wants TOEFL to be key exam

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is not satisfied with revising monetary policy — he also appears bent on reviving another failing field: the public's ability to speak English.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 24, 2013

Gruesome death stalks the front lines of conservation

It is one of the most poignant photos I've taken during this CITES. We are in Khao Yai (literally, "Big Mountain"), Thailand's first and grandest national park. Peaks and plunges. Huge trees. Waterfalls. And there are elephants and even a few tigers out there. Also rangers and poachers and a largely...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 22, 2013

Chinese rights genie at work

While criticism of China's human rights record clearly has merit, it is important not to lose sight of the genuine democratic change happening there.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 14, 2013

China using Senkakus dispute to test Japan, U.S.

Beijing faces an awkward propaganda problem in the South China Sea, as its sovereignty claims are not against an original imperial or colonial power.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Mar 3, 2013

Trying to get things done in the wake of 3/11

Two years have passed since the magnitude-9 Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, the devastating tsunami it triggered and the disgraceful and deadly fiasco at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant that followed.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2013

An uphill battle to reduce U.S. nuclear arsenal

President Barack Obama will have a harder time getting some Senate Republicans to agree to new reductions in nuclear arsenals than he will Moscow.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 10, 2013

Murakami ideal man for new U.N. goodwill ambassador role

Kudos to Masanori Murakami, the first Japanese player in the major leagues, on his recent appointment as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. "Mashi" is highly qualified to take the leadership role in supporting charities and, having been acquainted with him for...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 10, 2013

Future leaders stress 'politics of the daily'

In 2015, Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar's current president, Thein Sein, will both turn 70, so a great deal depends on future leaders. On a recent visit I caught up with two promising aspirants who focus on the "politics of the daily."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 8, 2013

The movie exposing the lies at the heart of U.S. capitalism

In one sense, "Inequality for All" is absolutely the film of the moment. We are living through tumultuous times. The economy has tanked. Austerity has cut a swath through our lives.
WORLD
Feb 1, 2013

Iran to install hundreds of new centrifuges

Iran has told U.N. nuclear officials that it plans to add potentially hundreds of next-generation centrifuge machines to its main uranium enrichment plant, a move that could dramatically boost its ability to produce the fuel used in nuclear power plants and — potentially — nuclear bombs.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 26, 2013

Paying a record tuna price is simply good advertising

“Even considering that Ooma tuna is a prestige brand, its tuna might normally sell for about u00a54,000 to u00a55,000 per kilogram,” a seafood trader tells Nikkan Gendai (Jan. 8).
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 21, 2013

Lethal threat to bats spreads south in U.S.

In the dead of winter, bats should be in a deep sleep. But at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, they are out and about, flying erratically in many cases, acting crazy. Out of nowhere, they have launched their mouse-size bodies at unsuspecting visitors, forcing people to shoo them off with fishing...
Japan Times
WORLD
Jan 21, 2013

U.S. set to close another source of cash for Iran

Ever since European seaports closed their gates to Iranian oil tankers last summer, Iran has looked to the East to keep its economy afloat. Countries such as China, India and South Korea — some of them critics of Western sanctions — have offered Iran a lifeline of reliable markets and much-needed...
LIFE
Jan 14, 2013

Tour guide exams another example of national licensing frenzy

Colin P.A. Jones wondered if he was alone in laughing out loud at a question about impaired thinking in the national nursing exam ("Stop thinking — the exam is about to start," Zeit Gist, Dec. 18).

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