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COMMENTARY / World
Mar 7, 2017

SpaceX's moon mission is NASA's wake-up call

The lunar vacation offered by Elon Musk's SpaceX may also serve as the starting gun for a new and very different space race.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 6, 2017

A rising power without allies

The more power China has accumulated, the greater has been its difficulty in gaining genuine allies — underscoring that leadership demands more than brute might.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 6, 2017

Beijing's freezing cabbies don't like electric cars

In its impatient drive to become a leader in renewable energy and conservation, China often underinvests in the infrastructure needed to realize its ambitions.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 5, 2017

Putin invented this toxic ambassador game

Trump's critics in Congress and in the media are following in Putin's footsteps by turning Russian representatives in the U.S. into pariahs.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 5, 2017

Liberal democracy in retreat?

Having already come under siege in many of its outposts around the world, is liberal democracy now at risk of losing its citadel, too?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 4, 2017

'Pachinko' author Min Jin Lee on how Japan's ethnic Koreans keep beating the odds

"I got lost all the time," says writer Min Jin Lee with a charming laugh, sitting in a hotel lobby in San Francisco's Japantown.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 3, 2017

Why it matters when artists criticize Trump

It is often the arts, serious or satirical, that expose the tragic absurdity of repressive leadership. And the worse Trump behaves, the more demand there will be for artists who oppose him.
WORLD / Science & Health
Mar 3, 2017

Malaria drug for pregnant women also combats sexually transmitted infections

A drug given to pregnant women to combat malaria also offers protection against sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and boosting doses of the "double protection" treatment cuts the risk of infant deaths, researchers said on Thursday.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 2, 2017

Confucius blocks change in South Korea

At the 'chaebol,' Confucian reverence for the 'emperor' translates into obedience to company founders and their families, who are treated like royalty.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2017

Don't count out a GOP impeachment of Trump

Whoever takes credit for bringing down a feared and reviled leader will rid themselves of a rival and reap rewards up to and including the highest office in the land.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 28, 2017

Fake news warning from an ex-propagandist

To create the kind of disinformation that changes the world, you need a story that's at least 60, 70 or even 80 percent true.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Feb 28, 2017

Magic will need luck, guile to help drama-filled Lakers return to glory

Magic Johnson learned a painful lesson as an NBA coach for 16 games, his Lakers went 5-11 at the end of the 1993-94 season. It was once most eloquently stated by Johnny Kerr, a star center from the 1950s and 1960s who coached the expansion Chicago Bulls: That's five guys running around with my paycheck....
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 27, 2017

Japan's Senkaku challenge

No group of islands poses a bigger challenge for Japan's security than the Senkakus.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 27, 2017

How China can stop the world's next pandemic

The deadliest outbreak of H7N9 bird flu since its discovery in 2013 is sweeping across China.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 25, 2017

Polish film director Andrzej Wajda represented the voice and conscience of a nation

"I stood here just after the end of the war," Polish film director Andrzej Wajda said. "I was only 19 years old. The entire area was flattened, just rubble. The Stare Miasto (Old Town) was one big gaping pit that I stared into."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Feb 25, 2017

'A Dark Night's Passing': Naoya Shiga sounds the depths of rootlessness

It takes a brave writer to make their main character as unlikeable as Kensaku Tokito. It is even more startling because Naoya Shiga was consciously writing within the 'I' novel tradition, where the author deliberately draws on their life story for source material.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Feb 25, 2017

Sake brewer Philip Harper: 'You need to learn humility in the face of nature'

British native on the need for patience during the brewing process.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 24, 2017

Trump's China challenge

So far, the Trump administration has shown that it is all bark and no bite when it comes to China.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 24, 2017

Fans converge on bookstores to snap up Haruki Murakami's latest work

Harukists, the die-hard fans of Japan's leading author, Haruki Murakami, gathered late at night Thursday in bookstores nationwide to purchase the writer's long-awaited latest work, which went on sale as soon as the clock struck midnight.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 23, 2017

Trust big data? Try googling the Holocaust

Big data was supposed to usher in a more precise and rational world. It might be leading us into the swamp of 'alternative facts.'
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 21, 2017

Why won't Dems kick Trump while he's down?

The refusal of the Democrats to pogo-dance on Trump's grave is one of the biggest missed opportunities in recent political history.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 21, 2017

No end in sight for Syria's balance of terror

In a war with endlessly shifting priorities, conflicting aims, few credible commitments and plenty of foreign meddling, any ceasefire today is just as likely to be broken by violence tomorrow.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 20, 2017

Investing big but wisely in Japanese study aids can reap dividends

An expensive dictionary, a big TV — and a wedding ring: just three of the big purchases that could give your Japanese a lift.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Feb 19, 2017

For African-American ‘idol’ Amina du Jean, difference is a double-edged sword

Amina du Jean been in Japan for only 2u00bd years, but in that time has become a bona fide idol, joined a J-idol group and even branched off into a bit of gravure (bikini) modeling.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 19, 2017

Washington PR offensive fails to quell Europe's anxiety over Trump

One month into the unusual presidency of Donald Trump, his most senior Cabinet members were deployed to Brussels, Bonn and Munich this past week to reassure nervous Europeans that everything would be OK.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 18, 2017

Japan tries to shed its pessimistic image

Japan ailing? Japan suffering? Nonsense. "Japan is the richest country in the world," proclaims Sapio magazine. And the best. And the happiest. The brightest future looms.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Feb 18, 2017

'Confessions of a Yakuza': Vice and survival in postwar Tokyo

The author of the best-selling "Memories of Silk and Straw" brings the same documentary approach to bear in "Confessions of a Yakuza," a study of an aging gangster by the name of Eiji Ijichi.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Feb 15, 2017

Trump shocks Japan's American expats into action

Established political groups see a surge in interest while new organizations form to meet demand.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 15, 2017

Ties to Japan may factor in Kim Jong Nam's mysterious murder

Fears by Kim Jong Un over his legitimacy as North Korea's hereditary leader due to his grandfather's work in a Japanese military factory may have had a role in brother's murder.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Feb 15, 2017

Letting fish stocks recover could vastly increase fishing profits, World Bank says

Global profits from fishing could grow by tens of billions of dollars if depleted fish stocks were allowed to recover, bolstering the livelihoods of millions of people and feeding the world's growing population, a study by the World Bank said Tuesday.

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