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WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 14, 2014

In threat to coastal cities, Antarctic melt may lift sea level faster than previously believed

The melting of glaciers in Antarctica because of global warming may push up sea levels faster than previously believed, potentially threatening coastal cities including Tokyo, New York and Shanghai, researchers in Germany said.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2014

Obama should follow Nixon's lead and do the right thing

Richard M. Nixon's White House efforts to cover up the Watergate scandal in 1972 look positively penny-ante compared to President Barack Obama's coverup of government-approved torture 40 years later.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2014

Who will give refuge to the last pagans of Iraq?

Already the Islamic State has practically eliminated the Shiite Muslim and Christian populations from the lands it controls. The worst of the persecution has been aimed at the Yezidi, a religious group whose pagan roots go back at least to the late Bronze Age.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2014

Obama can't afford to wage another Cold War

The U.S. may not be facing a new Cold War, but it will only weaken its position in the world, and especially against Russia, if it fails to heed the lessons of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 11, 2014

Never trust a realist when it comes to politicians

If you're looking for one big reason the U.S. seems to be on the wrong track, try the marginalization of idealism that coincided with the collapse of the peace movement and the American Left at the end of the Vietnam War in the early 1970s.
BUSINESS
Aug 11, 2014

Microsoft's emerging markets problem: Few want to pay for genuine product

On a trip to Beijing a decade ago, Bill Gates was asked by a senior government official how much money Microsoft Corp. made in China. The official asked the interpreter to double check Gates' reply as he couldn't believe the figure was so low.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 9, 2014

Okinawa: pocket of resistance

The battle over Henoko Bay looks set to challenge the power of the archipelago's protest movement.
EDITORIALS
Aug 8, 2014

STAP scandal turns fatal

Not only has the reported STAP cell discovery come to naught, it has also resulted in a leader in the research of regenerative medicine deciding to end his life.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2014

Gaza war may be a taste of the future

The latest war between Israel and Hamas is further testament to the historical fact that Israel's forefathers had to conquer the land that today's Israelis dwell in and ferociously defend. Is there hope of finding a lasting settlement with the Arabs?
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2014

Latin America, Israel trade after trading insults

As Gaza smolders, the anti-Israel drumbeat in Latin America is likely to continue, but the smart money says the damage will remain confined to the rhetorical battlefield. Trade will go on.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND
Aug 7, 2014

Foster parent shortage takes growing toll on children

Veteran foster parent Mika Hobbs was surprisingly frank when she confessed how nerve-racking her job can be.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 6, 2014

Theater's magic brings wonderful 'War Horse' to life

It is now 100 years since the start of World War I, which claimed close to 17 million lives before it ended in November 1918. Hence the Tokyo opening of "War Horse" — a play set during that so-called "war to end war" — serves in part as a memorial to the awful conflict.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 5, 2014

Israeli nationalism shows weakness, not strength

The conduct of its latest Gaza war suggests that Israel, which is blessed with a robust high-tech sector, embodies the greatest contradiction today between the imperatives of old-style territorial nationalism and a modern globalized economy.
JAPAN
Aug 4, 2014

Most shared Japan Times stories from July

In case you missed them, here are the most shared stories from The Japan Times for July 2014. The top 10 most shared new stories Welfare ruling stuns foreigners The landmark decision by the Supreme Court that permanent foreign residents of Japan are not entitled to welfare benefits will discourage more...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 2, 2014

Hot in the city: scorching Kumagaya

Exploring new ways of dealing with the heat from a city in Saitama that certainly knows a thing or two about keeping cool
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 2, 2014

U.S. think tanks turning into message merchants

Most U.S. think tanks were once idea factories, but now many are message merchants.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2014

A little self-control can add up to big savings

An American economics columnist reports that having to spend cash out of an envelope rather than just pulling out the debit card has made her much more frugal.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Aug 1, 2014

An Iraq in peril struggles to hold together

Salman Khaled has already lived through Baghdad's sectarian disintegration; with Iraq now splintering into Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish regions, he says this time the survival of the country is at stake.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 31, 2014

Indonesia gets a sprout with a new president

Having conducted an election that produced a successor president without excessive tumult or corruption, Indonesia may well be on its way to emerging as a major global player.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / NATURE'S PANTRY
Jul 29, 2014

Meet the artisan family striving for a better fish flake

The local train bound for Yamakawa bucked and buckled down the coast, jouncing us until our teeth rattled, and Yamakawa was so dinky we had to walk across the train tracks to exit the station. The taxi took us through a confusing rabbit warren of streets and, after asking directions several times, we...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 29, 2014

Why I'll be flying again on Malaysia Airlines

Despite losing its second airliner in four months, Malaysia Airlines says its generous refund policy for 2014 has not resulted in a surge in requests for refunds. There is good reason for that.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 27, 2014

The pathetic state of infrastructure in America

The deliberate starving of public funding for America's roads, bridges, parks, schools, public hospitals, even hospitals charged with caring for U.S. veterans, reflects the economic and political system's ass-backward priorities.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 27, 2014

What economic policies will fit the 'growth strategy'?

The Abe government has decided on its new economic growth strategy — the 'third arrow' of 'Abenomics' — but what of today's production systems, which are quite different from the models depicted in economics textbooks?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 26, 2014

Japan's 'Moe' obsession: the purest form of love, or creepy fetishization of young girls?

Anyone who has visited Tokyo's Akihabara district in the past decade will have run into countless images of cartoonish girls: in posters, in figurines and in the form of real women dressed up as French maids.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 26, 2014

Cypulchre

Many writers have tried in vain to emulate the cool tech-lingo-driven prose of author William Gibson's early cyberpunk fiction, and it's easy to pick those budding science-fiction writers who cast themselves as his successor — fellow Canadian Joseph MacKinnon falls into this category.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Jul 25, 2014

Anime enjoys summer homes in Los Angeles

For more than two decades, post-production, audio and creative studio Bang Zoom! Entertainment in Burbank, California, has been delivering the anime fix abroad. Founder and CEO Eric P. Sherman talks about how it all began.
BUSINESS
Jul 25, 2014

GSK corruption allegations spread to Syria

GlaxoSmithKline faces new allegations of corruption, this time in Syria, where the drugmaker and its distributor have been accused of paying bribes to secure business, according to a whistleblower's email reviewed by Reuters.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 24, 2014

Sakaiminato — the city of fish and festivities

Sakaiminato in Tottori Prefecture is a city that is ideal for tourists. It's one of the biggest fishing towns in Japan, and as the hometown of Mizuki Shigeru, author of the yōkai (Japanese folklore monsters and ghouls) manga series "GeGeGe no Kitaro," it's known as the birthplace of some of the country's...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 24, 2014

Putin nears a tipping point

By overplaying its hand in Afghanistan and lying to the world about the downing of a Korean Air Lines flight 31 years ago, the Soviet regime exposed and accelerated the rot that made its collapse inevitable. There is no reason to believe in a different fate for Vladimir Putin's effort to re-establish Russia as an imperial power.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.