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COMMENTARY
Aug 22, 2012

Brother of Thai leader upholds a feisty profile

Thaksin Shinawatra is undoubtedly the most controversial politician ever to become prime minister of Thailand, an oft-ignored country in Southeast Asia with a population and landmass greater than Britain or Italy. (But who besides a Thai knows this?) Elected several times in national elections deemed...
EDITORIALS
Aug 22, 2012

Mr. Putin's butterflies

Alexander Pope's question — "Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?" — is as compelling as ever in the wake of the two-year sentences handed down Friday by a Russian court to three young women convicted of hooliganism.
Japan Times
Uncategorized / TRAVEL INSIDER
Aug 22, 2012

Take a photo, win a trip to Bali; Singapore F1 package tour; SAS special fares

Garuda photo contest
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 21, 2012

Whose future is it anyway?

Singapore's paternalistic government is unappealing to many Americans — media restrictions, one-party rule, harsh penalties for gum-chewing.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 21, 2012

Softbank bets on credit card tieup

In an attempt to change the deep-rooted cash culture in Japan, Softbank Corp. is hoping to create a business opportunity here by teaming up with U.S.-based PayPal Inc.
EDITORIALS
Aug 21, 2012

Determining the North's intentions

Japan and North Korea have agreed to hold official talks in Beijing on Aug. 29. The last official talks were held in August 2008. The planned talks will be the first official talks for both the Democratic Party of Japan government and North Korea under the leadership of Mr. Kim Jong Un. Although the...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 20, 2012

A how-to guide to becoming a translator of how-to guides

Thinking back, I never set out with the intention of becoming a translator. I was employed by a small travel agency in Osaka and was only dimly aware that such an occupation even existed. But word got around that I could read Japanese, and one winter day in 1975 I was approached by an inventor who had...
Reader Mail
Aug 19, 2012

Mutations have many causes

Regarding the Aug. 12 Jiji Press article "Radioactive fallout from Fukushima nuclear meltdowns (in 2011) caused abnormalities in Japan's butterflies": And they could only find nuclear sins in innocent butterflies?
Reader Mail
Aug 19, 2012

Why shame Truman's grandson?

Masami Ito's Aug. 11 article, "Moment of truth for kin of A-bomb decision" was most interesting for the questions not asked:
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 19, 2012

Yakuza face new battles within and without

The nation's largest underworld syndicate, the Kobe-based Yamaguchi-gumi, is 97 years old.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 19, 2012

Rumbles in the jungle

Japan's poorest prefecture is Okinawa — and on Okinawa the poorest region lies along the northeastern coast blanketed by the dense Yanbaru jungle. Here, the villages of Higashi and Kunigami were the last areas on the island to receive electricity and running water. Until 1978, they lacked even a paved...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 19, 2012

Monster parents make matters worse for their children and teachers

In the West they hover and swoop. In Japan they stalk and are known to strike. We all have them and some of us have been them. And in recent years the media, both social and antisocial, have put them under the magnifying glass of criticism.
LIFE / WEEK 3
Aug 19, 2012

Scholar Tenshin Okakura's seaside pavilion, destroyed in tsunami, witnesses a new dawn

Rokkakudo, a small, six-sided wooden pavilion that overlooks the Pacific Ocean from a low rocky headland in northern Ibaraki Prefecture, is by no means Tenshin Okakura's most important legacy. That honor would go to "The Book of Tea," a now-classic dissertation on traditional Japanese aesthetics that...
JAPAN
Aug 18, 2012

Tokyo seeks ICJ ruling on Takeshima

Tokyo will go all out to persuade Seoul to take a sovereignty row to the International Court of Justice after South Korean President Lee Myung Bak's unprecedented visit to disputed islets in the Sea of Japan, government sources said Friday.
COMMENTARY
Aug 18, 2012

'Extreme' choice makes Romney presidential

When, in his speech accepting the 1964 Republican presidential nomination, Barry Goldwater said "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" and "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue," a media wit at the convention supposedly exclaimed, "Good God, Goldwater is going to run as Goldwater."...
EDITORIALS
Aug 18, 2012

Dealing with the Senkaku intruders

On Wednesday (Aug. 15), the 67th anniversary of the end of World War II, seven people disembarked off a boat from Hong Kong and set foot on the Uotsuri Islet of Japan's Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 17, 2012

Daughter tormented into suicide, mom on truth quest

Fifteen years after her only child, Kasumi, killed herself at age 15, Midori Komori still hasn't received any apologies from the people who bullied her daughter and the high school she attended said no such abuse occurred.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 17, 2012

'Wallace & Gromit' creator Peter Lord to play major role at animation festival in Hiroshima

The Hiroshima 2012: International Animation Festival has done pretty well for itself since its debut in 1985. It is now considered one of the four most respected animation festivals in the world.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 17, 2012

'Dogtooth'

Dogtooth" shows the kind of stark, nightmarish images that assail the senses during a fretful summer nap, when the body soaks the sheets and you're disoriented for a while afterward. What just happened here? It's not easy to say, except that the long procession of bizarre scenes evoke the distinct sensation...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 17, 2012

The art of making monsters

Good news for monster fans: Not one, not two, but three separate tokusatsu exhibitions are stomping their way through downtown Tokyo as you read these words.
Reader Mail
Aug 16, 2012

Tepco must reveal everything

Regarding the Aug. 10 front-page Jiji Press article "Seawater option for meltdown galled execs": Over the ages, we humans have made small mistakes, big mistakes and very big mistakes. It is human to err. To learn from the mistakes and take effective steps not to repeat them is what set humans apart from...
JAPAN
Aug 16, 2012

Two Cabinet ministers visit Yasukuni

Marking the 67th anniversary of the end of World War II, two Cabinet ministers on Wednesday paid what they said was a private visit to war-related Yasukuni Shrine, the first by such high-ranking politicians since the Democratic Party of Japan took power in 2009.

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