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EDITORIALS
Dec 6, 2013

Government without oversight

Even if the state secrets bill becomes a law, it will be important for people to continue grass-roots movements to oppose it and to prevent from being used to curb their right to know and to express their thought and opinions.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 1, 2013

No change in China air zone airline policy

Defense Minister Itsunori Onou00addeu00adra indicates that Tokyo won't change its stance on urging Japanese airlines not to submit their flight plans as requested by China for its new air defense identification zone over the East China Sea.
JAPAN
Nov 30, 2013

No Chinese jets scrambled: Japan

Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera denies China's claim it scrambled fighter jets in response to Self-Defense Forces aircraft entering its new air defense zone.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 19, 2013

Let's help the Philippines, just not like we helped Haiti

The international community must embrace the technology available to strengthen disaster preparedness, resilience and aid.
COMMENTARY
Nov 15, 2013

The true bitterness of sugar

Our use of sugar implicates us in land grabs that violate the rights of some of the world's poorest communities. Better-informed and more ethical consumers could change this.
Japan Times
WORLD
Nov 3, 2013

Secret documents reveal how close USSR came to launching nukes in '83

Chilling new evidence that Britain and America came close to provoking the Soviet Union into launching a nuclear attack has emerged in former classified documents written at the height of the Cold War.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 29, 2013

Syria's agony continues as the world looks away

Surgery without anesthesia is the brutal reality in Syria. Demolished hospitals and humanitarian blockades have left some Syrians to suffer through amputations and Caesarean sections.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 27, 2013

Rajapaksa: Sri Lanka's affable authoritarian?

Down in the deep south of Sri Lanka, where life usually moves at a leisurely pace, there is one small town that is less tranquil. Hambantota — population 20,000 — is expanding fast. There is a vast new deepwater port, built with $360 million of borrowed Chinese cash; a new 35,000-seat cricket stadium;...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 18, 2013

Profit quest leads big pharma down wrong road

As prescription drug sales in the U.S. stagnate, the drug industry is relying more on markets in China and African countries. But expansion often is tainted by unsavory business practices.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 12, 2013

Tabloids brimming with anti-Korea diatribes

For 11 consecutive days from the start of this month, every front page of the Yukan Fuji, a nationally circulated evening tabloid published by the Sankei Shimbun, was embellished with at least one negative reference to South Korea. Some headline excerpts:
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Oct 10, 2013

Machinery orders see best surge since 2008

In a sign of strengthening economic revival, machinery orders jumped to ¥819.3 billion in August, the highest since 2008, when the world was beset by a financial crisis.
JAPAN
Oct 7, 2013

Minamata mercury treaty finds skeptics

Delegates from about 130 countries will gather Wednesday in the Kumamoto Prefecture cities of Minamata and Kumamoto for a three-day meeting to finalize a new international treaty seeking to ban or greatly limit the use of mercury.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 7, 2013

JT seeks smokeless product tie-ups

Japan Tobacco Inc. plans to expand its range of smokeless tobacco products and is looking at tie-ups or acquisitions as consumers demand alternatives and regulations tighten worldwide.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 29, 2013

Sanctions have warmed up Iran for an accord

As Iran's economy reels and President Hassan Rouhani shows interest in rapprochement with the West, it seems high time to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran.
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...
EDITORIALS
Sep 18, 2013

Mr. Abe's ominous defense moves

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's approach to changing the government's traditional position on the right to collective self-defense undermines the foundation of Japanese democracy.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 16, 2013

Successful Olympic bid thrusts Tokyo into spotlight, fencing star says

For Olympic fencer Yuki Ota, Tokyo's successful bid for the 2020 Summer Games and Paralympics was like winning the gold medal he's always wanted.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 6, 2013

Syria bio-weapon threat worries neighbors

Last month's alleged chemical attack near Damascus has refocused attention on Syria's 30-year-old biological weapons research and raised concerns about whether its regime could activate an effort to make a weapon.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 25, 2013

NASA's mission improbable: corral an asteroid

NASA is looking for a rock. It has to be out there somewhere — a small asteroid circling the sun and passing close to Earth. It can't be too big or too small. Something 6 to 9 meters in diameter would work. It can't be spinning too rapidly, or tumbling knees over elbows. It can't be a speed demon....
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 23, 2013

No. 1 plant leak clouds Abe nuke spiel

Radiation spreading from the Fukushima No. 1 plant threatens to derail Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's efforts to revive nuclear power and deliver the lower energy prices needed to power his economic reforms.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 22, 2013

Multilateral accord presents pitfall if alliances are missing

South Korean President Park Geun-hye's call for multilateral dialogue in Northeast Asia is premature without a framework for military cooperation with Japan, South Korea and the U.S.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 20, 2013

China, Japan experts mull ways to avoid armed Senkaku confrontation

Chinese and Japanese experts on maritime and international relations huddled this week in Tokyo to discuss ways to keep the simmering tensions over the Senkaku Islands from escalating into a military clash.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 9, 2013

The Central African Republic abandoned to its violent fate

It was dusk when armed Seleka rebels dragged the teenager from the road leading north toward Kobe. They pulled her into the jungle and raped her for several hours. Her friend, Lisa Moussa, 17, was more fortunate. As soon as she saw the rebels, she began running. They tried to kill her, shooting until...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Aug 6, 2013

SkyTruth, the environment and the satellite revolution

Somewhere in the South Pacific, thousands of miles from the nearest landfall, there is a fishing ship. Let's say you're on it. Go onto the open deck, scream, jump around naked, fire a machine gun into the air — who will ever know? You are about as far from anyone as it is possible to be.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 4, 2013

The new cultural counter-revolution in China

The Chinese Communist Party's promotion these days of Confucianism and Western classical music illustrates the profound transformation this country has made again.
JAPAN
Jul 26, 2013

University of Tokyo to debut quarterly school year in 2015

The University of Tokyo announced Friday it will introduce a quarterly academic year from April 2015, replacing the current two semesters, to align itself with the international standard.

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