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EDITORIALS
Sep 7, 2014

Updating the Civil Code

The brevity of Japan's Civil Code, compared with those in Western countries, has enabled flexible interpretations that the Justice Ministry is trying to standardize with proposed revisions that it has been working on for the past five years.
WORLD
Sep 7, 2014

For Iraqi families, survivors, answers remain elusive months after Islamic State bloodbath

No one disputes the horrific outcome: Iraqi military recruits were led off their base unarmed and murdered in the hundreds, machine-gunned in mass graves by the Islamic State, whose fighters boasted proudly of the killings on the Internet.
COMMENTARY / Japan / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 6, 2014

Showmanship trumps substance during Modi visit

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is re-energizing Indian diplomacy and trying to carve out a more dynamic role for his country in global affairs. He has just wrapped up a visit to Kyoto and Tokyo, playing the role of pitchman-in-chief and holding a summit with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
EDITORIALS
Sep 5, 2014

Biggest defense budget requests

The Defense Ministry's fiscal 2015 budgetary request of ¥5.05 trillion is the largest ever and represents a 3.5 percent rise from the current year's budget. It is the third-straight year-on-year increase.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 5, 2014

Beijing's Humpty Dumpty mindset damages Hong Kong

Hong Kong people may soon be able to choose their chief executive, but they will not have a real democratic choice in who can be a candidate for office.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 2, 2014

Crossing paths with James Foley in Syria's war

A former independent reporter in Syria recalls the last times he saw freelance journalist James Foley — whom the Islamic State beheaded last month — and a helpful middle-aged tailor fighting for the Free Syrian Army.
JAPAN / INTERPRETATION & TRANSLATION
Aug 31, 2014

Connecting two cities beyond interpretation

Interpreters and translators facilitate communication and understanding between people who speak different languages, which sometimes is instrumental in bridging two distant cities.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 30, 2014

Inside author David Mitchell's metaphysical mind

Outside the vista windows of the Hotel New Otani's Garden Lounge cafe in Tokyo, it's snowing, in March, and it suddenly feels like the spring flowers in the Japanese garden below may have popped too soon. David Mitchell wonders aloud what kind of flowers they are, before returning to our discussion....
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Aug 29, 2014

Gifu mover gives forgotten temples new life in new places

Due to the decline in Buddhist worshippers and the population in general, the number of empty or abandoned temples has been growing in recent years.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 29, 2014

Is Berlin driving Paris to the brink?

President Franu00e7ois Hollande has instructed his prime minister to form a new government — without those troublemakers who want to stop the economic austerity in Europe, or at least apply some flexibility, before it is too late.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal / FOCUS
Aug 29, 2014

Corrupt Chinese hiding in Western nations elude Beijing's 'fox hunt'

When Yang Xiuzhu got wind in 2003 that Chinese anti-corruption investigators were looking into her affairs, she boarded a flight to Singapore. A few days later Yang changed her name and flew to New York.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 29, 2014

West Africa Ebola outbreak could infect 20,000 people: WHO

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa could infect more than 20,000 people, the U.N. health agency said Thursday, warning that an international effort costing almost half a billion dollars is needed to overcome the outbreak.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 28, 2014

China moves to limit polls in Hong Kong

China moved on Wednesday to limit 2017 elections for Hong Kong's leader to a handful of candidates loyal to Beijing, local media reported, a move that is likely to escalate plans by pro-democracy activists to blockade the city's Central business district.
WORLD / Society
Aug 28, 2014

Residents see Europe as best for gays and lesbians, Africa worst: poll

Most people in European nations say their community is a welcoming place for gays and lesbians, according to a poll released on Wednesday that also showed many in African countries see their homelands as hostile to homosexuals.
EDITORIALS
Aug 26, 2014

Military courts unconstitutional

The recent Cabinet decision to let Japan take part in 'collective self-defense' raises the question of whether a courts-martial system, and what would likely be a more severe standard for punishing violators of Self-Defense Forces law, should be introduced.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 26, 2014

Jakarta tiptoes around issue of gas-rich islets

The word "sleepy" could have been invented for Ranai, the largest town in Indonesia's remote and sparsely populated Natuna archipelago.
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Aug 25, 2014

Japan awaits North Korean report on fate of abductees

It may soon become clear whether the Japanese government's decision to bet on the power and ability of North Korea's State Security Department to resolve the fate of past Japanese abductees was justified.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 24, 2014

Japan's universities can't win

In view of the disparity in professors' pay between Japanese and American universities, the notion of elevating Japanese universities' global rankings simply by bringing in outstanding 'foreign talent' as instructors and researchers is a castle in the sky.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 22, 2014

Put Japan's casinos where they're most needed

Japan would do better to steer gargantuan casino projects to regions that really need them — like economically depressed Okinawa or Tohoku, the northeast region that still hasn't recovered from the March 2011 earthquake.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 21, 2014

Sukiyaki Meets the World ... and the world gets to meet Toyama

In June of 1963, Kyu Sakamoto's "Ue wo Muite Aruko" — better known as "Sukiyaki" overseas — became Japan's first, and only, No. 1 hit single in the United States.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 20, 2014

In the ethnographic realm of the senses: An interview with Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor

You may think you know what a documentary film is — "Life as it is," as Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov once put it — but you probably haven't seen any documentaries like the ones being produced by the filmmakers at Harvard University's experimental Sensory Ethnography Lab.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Aug 20, 2014

A high price to pay for a little peace of mind

Sometimes it's hard to believe the American that emerged, naked and naive, from Narita International Airport back in 2004 and the person writing this column are one and the same. Life in Japan has made me, unmade me and remade me. I've unpacked and sorted through all sorts of koto (generally, things...

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