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WORLD
Sep 4, 2013

Obama strains to win over public on Syria

President Barack Obama has turned the question of whether to strike Syria into an extraordinary national sales job — seeking to convince skeptics in Congress and among the public that military action would be worth the risk.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 4, 2013

Al-Qaida hopes to sabotage, destroy drones

Cells of engineers are working to exploit vulnerabilities of the weapons system, so far but they have not succeeded, a classified report finds.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 3, 2013

Is America now becoming an international outlaw?

When Barack Obama succeeded George W. Bush as U.S. president, the world heaved a collective sigh of relief. How ironic then that Obama risks making the U.S. the biggest international outlaw of our times.
EDITORIALS
Sep 1, 2013

Reforming the Upper House

The Upper House should be reformed in a manner that will allow it to help produce laws that promote nonpartisan public interests.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Aug 31, 2013

Naoto Kan speaks out

Naoto Kan took his first steps in the world of politics around 40 years ago as a pugnacious citizen-activist, admonishing those with power as only those without it can. He likes to say he's the same man now, but of course there's an irony in that. After all, in the intervening years he acquired about...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 31, 2013

Tepco's follies, reactor restarts and awkward plutonium stockpiles

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) is deservedly slagged as the Keystone Cops of nuclear power, and conjures up images of Homer Simpson, the iconic nuclear safety inspector in "The Simpsons." Perhaps it ought to adopt as its mascot Ocnus, the Greek god who personifies futility.
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 31, 2013

Most on Abe's expert panel approve plan to hike sales tax

The government's expert panel on the planned consumption tax hike wrapped up discussions Saturday with more than 70 percent of its members supporting the plan as it now stands, saying Japan will suffer a much bigger economic blow if the tax isn't raised.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 29, 2013

Government must take over Fukushima nuclear cleanup

It is literally a matter of national security that the decommissiong of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant be taken over by the government with the assistance of an international task force of experts.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 28, 2013

Strike on Syria could draw U.S. into protracted conflict

An imminent U.S. strike on Syrian government targets in response to the alleged gassing of civilians last week has the potential to draw the United States into the country's civil war, former U.S. officials say.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2013

CCP's plan for pro-democracy voices: repression

A semisecret directive from the senior members of the Chinese Communist Party tells us how President Xi Jinping plans to manage pro-democracy voices in China: by shutting them down.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2013

Power is fragmenting, but what is the true cost?

Political parties are succumbing to the rise of uncompromising single-issue pressure groups, and the corresponding decline of supporters who want common values expressed.
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Aug 26, 2013

Plugging Tepco's brain drain

One reason Tepco paid a uniform ¥100,000 special summer bonus to each of some 5,000 managerial employees is to plug a brain drain. Core workers are quitting.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Aug 26, 2013

Denials of defoliant at former U.S. base site in Okinawa fly in the face of science

The inescapable fact is that the U.S. military, on Kadena Air Base, disposed of materials in drums containing 2,4,5-T , a wartime defoliant, and TCDD, the most toxic component of the dioxin family, known to be associated with the manufacture of such herbicides.
COMMENTARY / World / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Aug 25, 2013

Still dreaming of a level field after all these years

Wednesday will mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington that soon came to be equated with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech, "I Have a Dream."
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 24, 2013

Australian coalition ahead of Labor: poll

Australia's opposition Liberal-National coalition has widened its lead over the Labor government in an opinion poll, signaling leader Tony Abbott may replace Kevin Rudd as prime minister after the Sept. 7 election.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 23, 2013

TPP challenges await Japan

This month's 19th round of Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations in Brunei will test Japan's negotiation skills as a full participant. Japan must build alliances quickly.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Aug 23, 2013

Mourinho picks up where he left off

He had changed, he assured us. The self-styled "Special One" was now the Mild One and there was a collective nodding as the gullible ones bought into Jose Mourinho's promise that he was Mr. Nice Guy.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 23, 2013

Convicted leaker Manning says he's a woman, wants to be called Chelsea

U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning said Thursday that he will live as a woman and seek hormone replacement therapy while incarcerated, confronting the military prison system with a demand that has prompted state and federal institutions to reluctantly offer similar treatment to inmates.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 22, 2013

Court rebukes flouting of nuclear waste policy

Nowadays the U.S government leavens its usual quotient of incompetence with large dollops of illegality, as evidenced by the 'law-flouting' Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Reader Mail
Aug 21, 2013

Loath to call a crime a crime?

I was greatly disappointed by the Aug. 18 editorial "Spare the rod at school." Despite the details on the use of corporal/physical punishment in Japanese schools, the editorial board's opinion on solving this serious problem and its apparent belief that the word "punishment" is inappropriate and that...
Reader Mail
Aug 21, 2013

Legacy of Christian humanism

It is difficult to know what precisely Jim Makin is getting at in his Aug. 15 letter, "Common Western fetishism."
COMMENTARY
Aug 20, 2013

Learning the lessons of Egypt

I'm not much for sports analogies, but any athlete knows about the home field advantage. It's easier to win if you play your game, not your opponent's.
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Aug 19, 2013

Union, business concerns put limits on freedom of speech

Hot on the heels of their romp to victory in the race for control of the House of Councilors, the Liberal Democratic Party is chomping at the bit to overhaul the Constitution, which has not been amended since it was signed into law in 1946. The ruling party proposes gutting Article 9, which forever bans...
BUSINESS / Companies / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Aug 18, 2013

Japan must open up to foreign investment — especially from China

Earlier this year, NHK aired the three-part TV program "Made in Japan," which dramatized an electronics company's struggle to survive tough economic times. While fictional, the story detailed the harsh reality Japan Inc. faces from Chinese competition.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2013

Newspaper rescue defines today's good citizen

It would appear that Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos wants less to own The Washington Post than to set its values free financially, for at least a generation or two.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 17, 2013

Rudd's Labor may lose seven marginal seats

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is on the brink of defeat in next month's national elections, with a poll indicating that his ruling Labor Party will lose seven of the eight most marginal electorates.

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?