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Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Aug 22, 2017

Poll split along racial, party lines finds 54% feel Confederate monuments should be preserved

A majority of Americans think Confederate monuments should be preserved in public spaces, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll, a view that is at odds with efforts in many cities to remove them.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 17, 2017

Nuclear issues aren't a problem for Hiroshima's punk acts — politics are

"Adults are stupid," says Shinji Okoda, who is better known in Hiroshima as "Guy," the vocalist for hardcore punk band Origin of M and owner of Disk Shop Misery and Bloodsucker Records. At 52, he certainly appears to have some authority in the matter.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Aug 16, 2017

Re-imagining Japan? Focus on the youth

It must have been in 2007 or 2008, during my graduate studies at a business school in Helsinki, Finland. I was sitting in a classroom with 30 fellow students when one of them asked us to raise our hands if we were considering a career as an entrepreneur after graduation. I looked around and saw a solitary...
Japan Times
Figure Skating / ICE TIME
Aug 15, 2017

Murakami aiming for spot on Olympic team

Earlier this month veteran skater Daisuke Murakami competed in and won the club competition at the Philadelphia Summer International in Aston, Pennsylvania. That was good news for the 26-year-old Murakami, who missed nearly all of last season with a broken right foot.
JAPAN
Aug 15, 2017

Over 6,100 offer prayers for war dead at event marking 72nd anniversary of Japan's WWII surrender

Attendees observed a moment of silence for the 3.1 million Japanese war dead at noon, when the late Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender in a radio address.
EDITORIALS
Aug 12, 2017

Respect the will of Taiwanese

The Chinese government should respect the will of Taiwan's voters on the unification issue.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 11, 2017

Opposition camp fears Abe may call snap election in October

Speculation grows that a vulnerable Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will call a Lower House election in October to keep the opposition camp in disarray while new parties emerge.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2017

Impeach me, please!

If U.S. President Donald Trump must flirt with impeachment to retain his command of the media, so be it.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 7, 2017

J-pop duo Scott & Rivers on writing Japanese lyrics

When American musician Scott Murphy first came to Japan in 2001, he could only say a few phrases in Japanese.
LIFE / Language / WELL SAID
Aug 7, 2017

Introducing よく, the adverbial form of よい and いい

How do you say, 'Wash your hands properly' in Japanese?
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 4, 2017

Abe softens stance on deadline for constitutional reform proposals, deferring to LDP

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's attempt to pressure his party into revising its constitutional revision proposals by the end of the year appears to have backfired, and he is now willing to let the party itself dictate the timing instead.
Reader Mail
Aug 4, 2017

Abysmal handling of documents

The July 10 editorial titled "Poor handling of government documents" interested me because of my own government experience. The law indeed has flaws, but why is the Diet unable to fix it?
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 3, 2017

Lessons in losing international influence

What's happening now in the U.S. and U.K. shows how poor leadership can be devastating to a country's international standing.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage / Backstage Pass
Aug 3, 2017

Giving Cio-Cio San a better ending

Giacomo Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" tells the story of a young Japanese girl named Cio-Cio San ("chō-chō" is the Japanese word for "butterfly") marrying and getting dumped by an American naval officer named Pinkerton. First performed in Italy in 1904, the opera is one of the most popular in the world...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 2, 2017

Pakistan's creation — a mistake?

The repercussions of the August 1947 partition of India continue to shake the subcontinent today.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Aug 2, 2017

Hope after the horror revealed in letters from postwar Hiroshima

Sixty years on, letters that formed the basis of Austrian writer Jungk's acclaimed account of life after the A-bomb are set to be published.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 30, 2017

It's high noon on the roof the world

The two nuclear powers have to come to terms with the fact that no one will come out a winner if they resort to military action.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 30, 2017

Government promises won't kill the combustion engine

The campaign to convince consumers that the combustion era is ending and electric is taking over is working about as well as anti-smoking campaigns did before cigarettes were banned in most public spaces and became prohibitively expensive for many smokers.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 29, 2017

Spare a thought for the secretaries

Few recent scandals have been as entertaining as Lower House lawmaker Mayuko Toyota's verbal and physical attack on her secretary as revealed in a recording leaked to the weekly magazine Shukan Shincho. With the recording coming to light in the week before the Tokyo assembly elections, Toyota decided...
EDITORIALS
Jul 28, 2017

Renho exit not enough for DP to defuse crisis

With Renho on the way out, the Democratic Party has to reassess and redefine its basic direction. Otherwise, its very survival may be in doubt.
Reader Mail
Jul 28, 2017

Japan, Taiwan and Okinotorishima

I applaud The Japan Times' courage in publishing Mark Valencia's opinion piece "Hypocrisy in the South China Sea" in the July 22 edition. Indeed, I dare venture such hypocrisy and thereby lack of moral high ground is why no one has felt able to push for the enforcement of The Hague ruling.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jul 28, 2017

Sources say Russia used Facebook accounts in attempt to spy on Macron campaign

Russian intelligence agents attempted to spy on Emmanuel Macron's election campaign earlier this year by creating phony Facebook personas, according to a U.S. congressman and two other people briefed on the effort.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 27, 2017

Takatoshi Ito, who sold Kuroda on inflation targets, now contender for top job

During countless shared lunches and impromptu meetings, Takatoshi Ito made a detailed and persuasive case that sold Haruhiko Kuroda on the inflation targeting regime he's pursued relentlessly as governor of the central bank. That was back in 1999, when Kuroda ran Japan's currency policy at the Finance...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 25, 2017

Former defense chief Ishiba overtakes Abe as top choice for prime minister in poll

Former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba overtook scandal-hit Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as the best person to lead Japan, an opinion poll showed Tuesday.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 25, 2017

Abe is stumbling but no challenger exists

Voters are ready for a viable alternative to the LDP, but the leading opposition party is failing to deliver.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 24, 2017

Putin's no good, but where's the alternative?

No Russian political leader is offering a vision ambitious and inspiring enough to compete with Putin. Perhaps that's why he finds it so easy to suppress dissent and hold on to power.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years