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JAPAN / Politics
Jul 18, 2014

Recent votes suggest local dissatisfaction with LDP growing

The conservative Liberal Democratic Party seems unassailable at the national level, but leader Shinzo Abe's actions are causing a backlash that could hurt the LDP in local elections.
JAPAN
Jul 17, 2014

Female workers may finally get foothold

When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe showed up last Sunday for the 19th International Conference for Women in Business, Kaori Sasaki — who has been organizing the gathering to empower women since 1996 — finally felt that society was changing.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 15, 2014

YMO's Yukihiro Takahashi recruits Towa Tei, Cornelius, Yoshinori Sunahara, Tomohiko Gondo and Leo Imai for an impressive supergroup

One of the unspoken rules in the progress-fixated world of electronic music is that you don't get bonus points for dwelling on past glories. So when Yukihiro Takahashi — drummer, vocalist and dapper elder statesman of electro-pop — convened a star cast of musicians at Tokyo's Ex Theater Roppongi...
LIFE / Language / COMMUNICATION CUES
Jul 14, 2014

LDP lawmaker apologizes for sexist jibe

A Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker apologized on June 23 for shouting a sexist remark at a female colleague from Your Party while she was asking questions about maternity support measures during a plenary session of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly.
EDITORIALS
Jul 13, 2014

'A bad day for Europe'

When British Prime Minister David Cameron denounced the nomination of former Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission, Cameron made himself look either ineffectual or petulant to fellow Britons.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Jul 12, 2014

Ramones punk band co-founder Tommy Ramone dies at 65

Tommy Ramone, the drummer and last surviving original member of the American punk band the Ramones, whose aggressive and fast-driving songs spearheaded the punk-rock movement, has died at the age of 65, an associate said on Saturday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 9, 2014

Lessons of suicidal Cowra breakout remain unlearned

At around 2 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 5, 1944, 1,104 Japanese soldiers and sailors armed only with knives, forks and a few baseball bats poured out of their huts at the Cowra prisoner-of-war camp 300 km west of Sydney in the Australian state of New South Wales. Charging through a hail of machine-gun fire,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 8, 2014

U.K. could learn from Canada about destiny

Depending on how it's done, leaving the EU spans a range of outcomes for the United Kingdom, running from 'terrible' all the way up to 'better than remaining a member.'
EDITORIALS
Jul 7, 2014

Not a solution for mental patients

The health and welfare ministry's plan to renovate some wards of mental hospitals into residences to reduce the official number of long-term in-patients will only prolong the 'former' patients' isolation from society.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 7, 2014

Let dinosaur aspirations die

British and Japanese politicians need to recognize that the power and influence of their countries are no longer what they used to be and that their governments must 'cut their cloth.'
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 7, 2014

Resetting India's foreign and security policies

The Modi government is reported considering allowing up to 49 percent 'foreign direct inviestment' in India's defense sector —without requiring technology transfers — as it manages modernization.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jul 7, 2014

Foreign women also face 'maternity harassment'

Non-Japanese women discuss their experiences of mata-hara, or 'maternity harassment' — discrimination in the workplace against women who are pregnant, on child-care leave or have returned to work after giving birth.
Reader Mail
Jul 5, 2014

Japan's voters seem apathetic to sexist pols

Regarding Philip Brasor's June 29 Media Mix column, "Sexist remarks seen through a clouded lens": I find it ironic and quite hypocritical that Tokyo assembly member Ayaka Shiomura, who spent most of her professional life perpetuating the marginalization of women, now plays the victim when that sexism...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jul 5, 2014

Is EU ready to actually change?

After six decades of relentless — if incremental — integration, might the European Union be about to go into reverse?
EDITORIALS
Jul 4, 2014

Watch progress on abduction issue

The government needs to watch North Korea to ensure that it follows through on a pledge to reinvestigate the fate of Japanese nationals kidnapped by North Korean agents, now that Japan has decided to lift some economic sanctions on the country.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 1, 2014

Abe wins battle to broaden defense policy

The administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe authorizes a reinterpretation of war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution, allowing Japan for the first time since World War II to come to the aid of an ally under attack.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jul 1, 2014

Critics: What defines the conditions for military force?

Japan is at a historic crossroads in amending its long-held pacifist defense posture, a move that it may never reverse, and critics charge that the Abe administration's criteria for exercising the right to collective self-defense will prove ineffective.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society / FOCUS
Jul 1, 2014

Beijing quietly tightening grip on Hong Kong

Since Britain handed back colonial Hong Kong in 1997, retired primary school teacher and Falun Gong devotee Lau Wai-hing has fully exercised the freedoms China promised this city of 7.2 million.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jun 28, 2014

EU, Ukraine ink trade pact; cease-fire extended by 72 hours

The European Union signed a historic free trade pact with Ukraine on Friday and warned it could impose more sanctions on Moscow unless pro-Russian rebels act to wind down the crisis in the east of the country by Monday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 25, 2014

Expanding roles for working women

The situation on gender issues may not be exactly the same in Germany and Japan, but the two countries have similar agendas; men and women must change their mentality to increase the number of female leaders, eight experts on gender issues from the two countries concluded.
Reader Mail
Jun 25, 2014

Backhanded apology accepted

Regarding the June 24 article "Lawmaker apologizes for sexist jibe": It was appropriate that Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly member Akihiro Suzuki offered an apology to Your Party assembly member Ayaka Shiomura, the woman he and others heckled a few days earlier when she attempted to discuss the special...
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 25, 2014

Shiga governor race to hinge on public works, reactors

The race for the July 13 Shiga gubernatorial election will kick off Thursday with three candidates vying to replace Yukiko Kada, with the campaign expected to focus on public works spending and how to cope with nuclear reactors in neighboring Fukui Prefecture.

Longform

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