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JAPAN
Jan 1, 2012

What 2011 means for Japan in 2012 and beyond

We asked three long-term foreign residents to give their thoughts about Japan's past year and the coming year.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Dec 31, 2011

Used bookstores turn to Internet sales for a lift in turbulent times

Last of two parts
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2011

Things the telly didn't tell you about Thatcher

Britain in the early 1970s was decayed, ungovernable and globally irrelevant, done in by the cumulative effect of postwar socialist reforms.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Dec 30, 2011

Rice takes prized, symbolic yearend form

Shōgatsu (New Year's) is the most important holiday on the Japanese calendar, and the dishes associated with it are laden with symbolic meaning. While the colorful foods of osechi, packed attractively in jūbako (stacking bento boxes), are the flamboyant attention-catchers of the New Year's feast, the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 30, 2011

The year of tough guys worth swooning over

Cinematically speaking, 2011 was the Year of the Guy. By this I mean the genuine article, the "you can't kill 'em, you can't live without 'em" variety. Here are the 10 films of the year that feature the most distinctly provocative males in the most appropriate vehicles. All are handsome in suits or cargo...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 29, 2011

2011 was a dangerous year for world's bad guys

This was a bad year for bad guys. Departing the political scene — or departing the scene altogether — were Osama bin Laden, North Korea's "Dear Leader," Kim Jong Il, and a trio of Arab leaders: Tunisia's Zine el-Abidine ben Ali, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 28, 2011

Prepare for the Colder War

Santa Claus may see you when you're sleeping, but NORAD makes sure it sees Santa pretty much round-the-clock. The North American Aerospace Defense Command not only follows Saint Nick's sleigh ride with its famous NORAD Tracks Santa site, but it is also involved in a struggle over resources, border control...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Dec 27, 2011

Many angles to acquiring Japanese citizenship

Nationality has long been a controversial issue in Japan. For most, it is something they are born with; for others, it is something they had to fight for. For some, nationality may be a source of pride, while for others, it may be the cause of discrimination.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Dec 26, 2011

Strange how isolationist stance can ruin a politician's reputation

Perhaps because it's a round number, the 70th anniversary of Japan's assault on Pearl Harbor has given me the impression that more articles on it saw print than in the past, except for, as I recall, the 50th anniversary of the same.
BASKETBALL
Dec 26, 2011

Phoenix pile more woe on struggling Broncos

The proof is in the record book, so go ahead and look it up.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2011

'Pro-Israel' doesn't mean backing status quo

Advocates of strong U.S.-Israel relations have aimed for decades to keep Israel from being a divisive issue in American politics. Yet Israel is one of very few foreign policy issues already rating attention in the 2012 presidential election.
COMMENTARY
Dec 26, 2011

The Korean god that failed and then was gone

Major historic chapter-ending news often seems so terribly sudden. Many North Koreans were said to be sincerely weeping over the demise of "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il, but for other people around the world, the end came none too soon. Their eyes are quite dry and will so remain, for as long as there is...
Reader Mail
Dec 25, 2011

Misconceptions about college

Takamitsu Sawa's Dec. 19 article, "Motivation for college study," shows us what is wrong with the educational system in Japan. The comments made by a university president that are not based on knowledge or statistics are quite shocking. I started out hoping to learn more about motivation and ended up...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 25, 2011

Crime, war, and laughs unintended

Bill James, a well-known baseball authority, deviates from sport coverage to introduce some of America's most celebrated true crime cases in "Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 25, 2011

Close-up on a people's disaster

"Everything Is Broken: Life Inside Burma" is the second book by Emma Larkin, a Burmese-speaking American journalist who gathers her touching stories traveling incognito in Burma (aka Myanmar).
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 24, 2011

Tokyo's bookworms find readers' paradise in used bookstores

First of two parts
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 22, 2011

The dark legacy of North Korea's ruling elite

Satellite images of Asia at night are eerily beautiful, illuminated as they are by hundreds and thousands of bursts of light. That light is what civilization looks like from space. It's the glow of fluorescent bulbs in office buildings and warm lamps in homes and bright runways crisscrossing airports....
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 20, 2011

Family ties spur spending sprees

Hiromi Komatsu is hitting Tokyo department stores in search of Christmas presents this year for the first time in her life, as she prepares for a rare visit by family members for the holiday season.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Dec 18, 2011

There's more to Christmas colors than meets the eye

The rotenburo (outdoor hot spring) that I most regularly frequent creates an excellent illusion of there always being a full moon bathing in its glow those soaking beneath.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Dec 18, 2011

How The Japan Times saved a foundering battleship, twice

Mikasa! The name of the mighty Japanese battleship will be as familiar to the world's naval historians as it is now to viewers of NHK's Sunday evening drama "Saka no Ue no Kumo" ("Clouds Over the slope"). It was the Mikasa that all but decided the fate of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, when it led...
JAPAN
Dec 16, 2011

Futenma base relocation has little hope left

The political games being played in Washington and Tokyo regarding whether the U.S. will fund the transfer of Okinawa-based U.S. Marines to Guam are of no consequence, experts say, because the 2006 plan to relocate the Futenma airbase to Henoko in northern Okinawa Island, which the Guam transfer depends...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 14, 2011

Five myths about presidential contender Ron Paul

Ron Paul is the Rodney Dangerfield of Republican presidential candidates. The 12-term Texas congressman ran for president on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1988 and was widely seen as a sideshow in 2008, despite finishing third in the GOP field behind John McCain and Mike Huckabee. Why, despite a small...
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 11, 2011

The Scot who shaped Japan

This coming Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, marks the centenary of the death in his opulent home in the Shiba Park area of Tokyo's central Azabu district of the Scottish-born trader Thomas Blake Glover, who became the first foreigner ever decorated by the Japanese government when he was awarded the Order of the...
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Dec 8, 2011

A look into Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

It is hard to think of fin de siecle Paris without recalling the dancing girls and dandies of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's colorful prints. It is equally difficult to imagine work by the artist not centered on the city's hedonistic and decadent nightlife.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 7, 2011

Putin afflicted by Brezhnev syndrome

The winner of Sunday's legislative election in Russia was a foregone conclusion: United Russia, organized by Vladimir Putin. Likewise, there is no doubt that Putin himself will win the presidential election due in March 2012. But the public enthusiasm that ratified Putin's rule for a decade has vanished,...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 7, 2011

Political earthquake in Osaka

Toru Hashimoto's huge victory in the Osaka mayoral election was undoubtedly a political earthquake. The question now is how sweeping and powerful will be the tsunami that follows. My worry is that Tokyo, and particularly the political and bureaucratic establishment, does not comprehend the tectonic forces...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 6, 2011

Comic anthologies offer visions of hope after 3/11

In the wake of March 11, artists, writers, letterers and colorists based in Japan and across the globe have been hard at work crafting stories and images of solidarity, concern and, above all, hope for two fundraising books: "Spirit of Hope" and "Aftershock: Artists Respond to Disaster in Japan."
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 5, 2011

U.S. budget cuts and the next war of choice

The failure of the U.S. Congressional Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction to reach agreement on budget cuts now sets the stage for $1.2 trillion in automatic reductions to begin in January 2013.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 4, 2011

No safe haven for modern-day assassins

MAXIMUM TARGET, by Martin Gower. NoirEast Publishing, 2011, 360 pp., $26 (hardcover) THE DETACHMENT, by Barry Eisler. Thomas & Mercer, 2011, 324 pp., $14.95 (paperback) Some time ago, it became clear that thriller fiction set in Asia that featured Caucasian superheroes like James Bond was becoming increasingly...

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