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EDITORIALS
Mar 18, 2014

Overhaul the electoral systems

Diet members need to set their sights on overhauling the electoral systems for both houses before the next national election and explore what kinds of systems would better suit the different roles of each chamber.
BUSINESS / Economy / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Mar 15, 2014

Economy can do without structural reform

While critics of "Abenomics" begrudgingly agree Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's policy package has been a success so far, they are equally quick to highlight its looming headwinds.
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 15, 2014

Euthanasia: the dilemma of choice

Euthanasia is an emotionally charged issue for people on both sides of the debate. Proponents of euthanasia argue that a person suffering from terminal illness should be given the freedom to choose how and when they die. Such discourse is given weight by the Japanese term for the practice — anrakushi,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 31, 2014

Three more bad omens on Iran nuclear talks

As we get closer to the main negotiations over Iran's nuclear program, it's hard to find an auspicious sign in Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's recent statement that under no circumstances would Iran agree to destroy any of its centrifuges.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Jan 27, 2014

Have your say on English education

Letters and online responses to the Jan. 6, 13 and 20 Learning Curve columns by Teru Clavel on English education.
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2014

Jury still out on Kansai union's worth

A useless talk shop that will ultimately be remembered as a massive waste of taxpayer money, or a farsighted experiment that will someday be seen as the forerunner of a fundamentally new system of central government?
Reader Mail
Jan 22, 2014

Better remedy than income taxes

I agree with Keisuke Akita's opinions in his Jan. 8 letter, "A simple remedy for inequality," except for his assertion that economics is not a science. There are no indisputable laws in economics comparable to Newton's laws in physics, but much of the pure sciences is based on theories, and theories...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 19, 2014

Let Iraq, Afghan regimes look after themselves

What more than a decade ago was believed by Americans to be the omnipotence of the U.S. in the Middle East and Central Asia is today being replaced by a fear that the U.S. is responsible for why everything seems to be going wrong.
EDITORIALS
Jan 17, 2014

Problematic nuclear accord

Japan should start considering right now how and whether it will assume liability for damages and casualties if a severe accident occurs at one of the four nuclear reactors that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is building with a French company in northern Turkey.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 23, 2013

How the Federal Reserve was created

A century ago this week, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, creating a central bank for a nation that was only beginning its economic ascendance. This is the story of how it came to be, from a nearly catastrophic financial panic to secret meetings of plutocrats on the Georgia coast to the pitched...
CULTURE / Music
Dec 10, 2013

London Grammar takes a road less traveled in 2013

The big music story of 2013 hasn't been the emergence of a bright new artist or genre. When people look back on this year they'll think of Robin Thicke's creepy uncle routine, Miley Cyrus giving oral pleasure to builders' hardware or Kanye West's Nietzschean rants about his fiancée's bottom. This was...
EDITORIALS
Nov 29, 2013

Reducing Japan's emissions

The upshot for Japan from the just-ended Warsaw conference on climate changes is that it must come up with a new longer-term emissions reduction plan within 16 months.
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 30, 2013

Anti-nuclear Koizumi agitating for comeback?

Long out of the public eye, ex-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's recent rumblings against nuclear power are causing many to wonder if the most popular leader of recent decades seeks a political comeback.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health / FOCUS
Oct 25, 2013

Space trash tax eyed

Space is getting awfully messy. The amount of debris in Earth's orbit keeps multiplying each year, damaging satellites and putting astronauts in harm's way. If the problem gets severe enough, it could eventually make low-Earth orbit unusable.
COMMENTARY
Oct 24, 2013

New lever for reducing the U.S. nuclear arsenal

The threat of the continuing U.S. budget sequester could succeed in yielding rational changes to the U.S. nuclear weapons program — a goal that simple logic has failed to achieve.
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 8, 2013

U.S. agrees to keep Japanese victims of military crimes informed

Washington agrees to disclose U.S. court proceedings to victims of crimes allegedly committed in Japan by U.S. military personnel.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 8, 2013

Bibi and Obama head for a showdown on Iran

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's message to the U.N. was simple: If Iran doesn't abandon its nuclear ambitions in the coming months, we're going to have a crisis.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Oct 7, 2013

The Special Dismissal Zone: where legal protections no longer apply

The government's Special Employment Zone wheeze has already been dubbed the Special Dismissal Zone, or kaiko tokku, by the media.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 2, 2013

Tale of two crises: connecting the dots from Iran to Syria

The twin crises involving Syria and Iran demonstrate the continuing utility of the United Nations as the Security Council remains the cockpit for addressing geopolitical upheavals.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / FOCUS
Sep 30, 2013

Troop command top issue as Hagel visits South Korea

Sixty years after the end of the Korean War, the United States and South Korea still cannot agree on who should take charge if another war breaks out with the communist neighbor to the north.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 17, 2013

Why the West misread Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin's end goal in his Syrian diplomatic initiative is to put the U.S. back into the U.N. Security Council box.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 1, 2013

The Syria questions you were too afraid to ask

The United States is preparing for a possibly imminent series of limited military strikes against Syria, the first direct U.S. intervention in the two-year civil war, in retaliation for President Bashar Assad's suspected use of chemical weapons against civilians.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Aug 24, 2013

Reflecting at leisure on who we are and where we live

My day job as a professor in Japan offers precious few chances to take a step back from work and give the old brain a bit of free rein. But August is one such golden opportunity.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 23, 2013

China's voyage of discovery to cross the less frozen north

For a ship on a mission of worldwide importance, the Yong Sheng is a distinctly unimpressive sight. The gray and green hull of the 19,000-ton cargo vessel, operated by China's state-owned Cosco Group, is streaked with rust, while its cargo of steel and heavy equipment would best be described as prosaic....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2013

Fox tackles history in 'Emperor'

Actor Matthew Fox saw his career take off in the 1990s with the role of Charlie Salinger in the American TV series "Party of Five," and he gained even more popularity as Jack Shephard, the central character in the innovative series "Lost." Now, though, his performance in the movie, "Emperor," in which...
BUSINESS / BALANCING INTERESTS
Jul 22, 2013

Japan may be latecomer but TPP trade party has just begun

Japan only has three days in Malaysia for the TPP negotiations, but experts say it has a solid chance to lead the revamp of trade in the Asia-Pacific region.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 8, 2013

Ellsberg: Leaker Snowden made the right call

Edward Snowden made the right call in fleeing the United States after leaking classified documents about NSA surveillance. So says the 1971 leaker of the 'Pentagon Papers.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 27, 2013

Sincerity is the new ecstasy in Funkot's 'Summer of Love'

At the end of the 1980s, British DJs imported a potent new style of house music from the Spanish party island Ibiza in what came to be known as the ecstasy-fueled "Second Summer of Love." Inspired by this trade route two decades later, Katsumi Takano, aka Mandokoro or DJ Jet Baron, hopes to launch a...

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan