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COMMENTARY / World
Apr 13, 2015

Would U.S. pay too high a cost in TPP pact?

Only when the U.S. is prepared to ensure fair treatment for its own companies, should Washington offer free trade consideration to yet more budding competitors.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 13, 2015

Chinese hackers likely behind decade-long cyberattack on Southeast Asia, India: report

Hackers, most likely from China, have been spying on governments and businesses in Southeast Asia and India uninterrupted for a decade, researchers at Internet security firm FireEye Inc. said in a report released Monday.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 13, 2015

America's political system is broken

The fact that U.S. presidential candidates must adjust their positions to conform to the banal, the uninspired, the illegal, with total disregard for the will or the greater good of the people, demonstrates that the American political system is broken.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 12, 2015

Robots leave behind Chinese factory workers

Chinese factory owners are increasingly turning to automation, leaving millions of low-skill workers with an uncomfortable sense of impending obsolescence.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 12, 2015

The reality of Mexico's climate change promise

Mexico has become the first developing nation to meet the United Nations' challenge to publish a road map for combating climate change.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 12, 2015

California learns from Australia on coping with long-term drought

Australian farms and cities manage almost every drop of available water to make the most of supplies on the driest inhabited continent. No wonder California is looking Down Under for help with its record drought.
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 11, 2015

Takuboku Ishikawa: engaged observer

The society of Takuboku Ishikawa's era was in dramatic political flux, and its complex issues became his personal obsessions. After his death, Takuboku's preoccupations came to be seen as a symbol of the social and emotional upheavals of his times.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 11, 2015

Abe gets negative reviews ahead of U.S. visit

At the end of this month Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Washington, D.C. He can expect the red carpet treatment because he has ticked more boxes on the Pentagon's wish list than all his postwar predecessors combined.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 11, 2015

Invoking Manchuria's cross-dressing spy

She was born the daughter of a Manchu prince in Beijing in 1907. Later, as she grew up in Japan, she earned notoriety for her flamboyant challenges to gender roles and her military exploits as a princess-spy. Even today Yoshiko Kawashima still stokes controversy, and Phyllis Birnbaum's new biography...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 2015

Greece's worst option would be IMF default

The uncertainty over this week's payment to the IMF is just the latest episode of a multiyear tragedy for Greece and its creditors as they try to navigate a situation that has been managed too timidly for too long.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 2015

Iran's long-postponed rise is all but inevitable

Only a cataclysmic war will prevent Iran from fulfilling its long-postponed destiny as a major economic, political and scientific nation.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 2015

Relearning to love nuclear weapons

The shocking thing about nuclear weapons is that they seem to have lost their power to shock.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 6, 2015

High price of cold-hearted capitalism

At the root of Germanwings pilot Andreas Lubitz's likely decision to kill himself is that he lived, as we all do in the Western world, in a disposable society.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 6, 2015

On the right path, China must cut coal reliance

China's recent progress in reducing emissions shows that, with the right combination of government policies, corporate initiatives, and public pressure, even the largest and most polluted countries can clean up their act.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Apr 5, 2015

Viewed through a religious lens, Japan makes more sense

Ever noticed how Japan — and in particular, its ruling elite — keeps getting away with astonishing bigotry?
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 5, 2015

Nigeria's rocky road forward

Even if President-elect Muhammadu Buhari cracks down on Nigeria's endemic corruption, the country's stability and prosperity will continue to be threatened by overpopulation, sectarian violence and falling oil prices.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 5, 2015

Pan-Arab military force — a good idea or bad?

The Arab League's decision to establish a joint military force is a major accomplishment for Saudi Arabian foreign policy, but comes with serious risks.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 4, 2015

'Encore! The New Artisans' is a visual bible of decorative, sometimes gimmicky crafts

Craft, writes author Olivier Dupon, "is no longer a trend; it is at last enshrined in contemporary life."
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 4, 2015

Magazines fixate on the roots of poverty

The oft-seen expression ichioku sō-chūryū translates roughly as "the perception of 'the 100 million,' i.e., the entire nation, as belonging to the middle class."
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 2, 2015

AIIB: Chinese cash versus American might

When it comes to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the message from China to the U.S. is clear: either concede to us the place we deserve in existing international institutions, or we will go around you and start our own.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 2, 2015

Cinderella's new moral: be rich or be a pumpkin

Kenneth Branagh's remake of 'Cinderella' carries a troubling economic message.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health
Apr 1, 2015

New Riken chief pledges to restore trust after scandal

The newly appointed head of the Riken research institute has pledged to restore its reputation as a global leader in the field.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Mar 31, 2015

Bulls were nearly broken up before making NBA Finals for first time

This is the ninth installment from Hall of Fame writer Sam Smith's new book "There Is No Next: NBA Legends on the Legacy of Michael Jordan."
Figure Skating / ICE TIME
Mar 31, 2015

Machida's move proves costly for Japan in the end

Japan came away from the 2015 world championships last week in Shanghai with two of the six singles medals after Yuzuru Hanyu and Satoko Miyahara both claimed silver.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 31, 2015

A Sunni coalition is a welcome development

The U.S. and Israel should probably welcome the Egyptian president's announcement of an agreement by the Arab League to create a joint military force, as the Islamic State group is unlikely to be defeated by air power alone.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 31, 2015

EU’s easy-money endgame

The euro has brought a balance-of-payments crisis to Europe, just as the gold standard did in the 1920s. Only one difference exists between the two episodes: In today's crisis, huge international rescue packages have been available.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 30, 2015

Taiwanese writer Chou Chin-bo as war victim

Recently I was asked to translate into English a short story that the Taiwanese writer Chou Chin-bo wrote in Japanese back in 1941. I was happy with this request. I was born in Taipei in 1942, but ever since my family was forced out of the island upon Japan's defeat in the war, in 1945, I have never...

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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