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COMMENTARY
Feb 23, 2013

Wrestling with the corruption of the Olympics

It has been scarcely a week since the International Olympic Committee announced its intention to exclude wrestling from the 2020 Summer Games, and the campaign to "Save Wrestling" is in full swing.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Feb 22, 2013

Tokyo literary festival writes its opening chapter

Every time David Karashima took a Japanese author to New York or London to do a reading, the local audiences would ask two questions: "Who's the next Haruki Murakami?" and "Why isn't there an international literary festival in Tokyo?"
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Feb 22, 2013

InterContinental to open in Osaka; haute cuisine at Mercedes-Benz Connection; White Day gifts at Cerulean Tower

InterContinental to open in Osaka
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2013

The limits of military growth

The unipolar moment of global military supremacy for the U.S. after the Cold War ended with the Soviet Union collapse appears to have been fleeting.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 22, 2013

Abe shows a flair for pragmatism and survival

China is walking a fence. It blames the U.S. for North Korea's ambitions, yet works to avoid being seen as the enabler of the North's nuclear program.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 22, 2013

'Yokomichi Yonosuke'

Plenty of Japanese directors make films about socially awkward or marginal guys: Given all the on-screen examples (as well as their many real-life inspirations), it seems that the onetime country of the samurai has become the land of the otaku and freeter (unemployed or underemployed), clasping to emotional...
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 22, 2013

Abe's new agenda: better ties with U.S.

As the U.S. seeks to contend with a rising China, the ability of Japan to contribute, and to serve as a positive democratic role model, matters a great deal.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 22, 2013

Silver Linings Playbook

Sometimes life falls off its dreary grid and takes on the texture and flavor of strawberry chiffon cake. That's kind of what happens when watching "Silver Linings Playbook": The more this romantic comedy-drama about an ex-teacher with mental-health problems and the people around him progresses, the more...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 22, 2013

'Martha Marcy May Marlene'

You're fed up with your family, your upbringing, your school, your social class. You don't fit in and are reminded of it. The rules and social norms that other people seem to follow so blindly seem to you phony, trite, suffocating. You develop an attitude, a bit of psychological armor, and step off the...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 21, 2013

Abe: China stirs up rows to build support at home

China has a 'deeply ingrained' need to spar with neighbors over territory, because the Communist Party uses the disputes to maintain strong domestic support, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 21, 2013

Three murderers sent to the gallows

Three death-row inmates are hanged, in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, the first executions carried out under the new Liberal Democratic Party-led government.
Reader Mail
Feb 21, 2013

Government's words vs. deeds

As a Japanese citizen, I strongly deplore seeing the Japanese government contradict energy policy that has already been written. It is not natural to say that all nuclear plants will cease operation by 2030 after the trade and industry ministry has endorsed resuming nuclear power plant construction that...
Reader Mail
Feb 21, 2013

Cut the irrelevant gender data

Feminists of all stripes are having a field day with the Minami Minegishi scandal, but the Feb. 17 editorial, "AKB48 and sexual politics," is the second Japan Times editorial to cite irrelevant data in the course of analyzing the issue.
WORLD
Feb 21, 2013

Rebels may bring war to Lebanon

Syrian rebels on Tuesday threatened to carry out attacks against Hezbollah inside Lebanon, a dangerous escalation of the conflict that could destabilize Syria's politically volatile neighbor as well as the region.
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2013

Writer Donald Richie dies at 88

Long-term Japan resident, writer and critic Donald Richie, who through dozens of books and articles published from the late 1940s until the last decade helped introduce Japanese film and culture to the world, passed away in Tokyo on Tuesday, according to his long-term editor, Leza Lowitz. He was 88....
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Feb 20, 2013

Digital capitalism produces few winners

Need a crash course in digital capitalism? Easy: you just need to understand four concepts — margins, volume, inequality and employment.
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 20, 2013

China's Tibet dam proposals raise eyebrows in India

Plans by China to build three dams in Tibet have rung alarm bells in next-door India, where fears are rising that the northern nation's thirst for power and water will one day affect the flow of the mighty Brahmaputra River, a lifeline for tens of millions of people.
LIFE / Travel / TRAVEL INSIDER
Feb 20, 2013

British Airways' high tea; Cathay Pacific's new lounge; Singapore Airlines' new video games

Taking tea to new highs
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Feb 20, 2013

Freeware has animators dancing to the Hatsune Miku beat

If you search for the acronym MMD on Niconico or YouTube — the two most popular video-sharing sites in Japan — the resulting list will have over 100,000 anime videos, most of which have 3-D anime-style girl characters singing and dancing to electronic J-pop music. What's surprising is that these...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2013

An uphill battle to reduce U.S. nuclear arsenal

President Barack Obama will have a harder time getting some Senate Republicans to agree to new reductions in nuclear arsenals than he will Moscow.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 19, 2013

Catholic Church is losing battle with modernity

There's no point in going on about how Pope Benedict XVI failed to modernize the church. What the Catholic Church is really fighting is modernization, which it sees as moral decline.
EDITORIALS
Feb 19, 2013

Save Olympic wrestling

Japan should join the other countries that are opposed to the IOC's decision to possibly exclude wrestling from the 2020 Olympics and launch strong lobbying activities to save the sport.
Japan Times
TENNIS
Feb 19, 2013

Azarenka tops Serena in final

Victoria Azarenka defeats Serena Williams to win the Qatar Total Open before handing over her world No. 1 ranking to the beaten finalist.

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear