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JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jun 18, 2016

Autism may not be confined to the brain

Thirteen-year-old Naoki Higashida describes his own personal feelings about having autism as follows:
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 10, 2016

The gap in 'China policies'

There are fundamental gaps between the American and Japanese perceptions of China.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OBJECT-ORIENTED
Jun 3, 2016

Sori Yanagi's magnificently 'normal' bowl and strainer

Hidden away in an unlikely courtyard in Tokyo's Yotsuya neighborhood is what may well be the world's first design shop stocked only with products by a single product designer. The Yanagi shop was opened in 1972 by Sori Yanagi, the son of Mingeikan (The Japan Folk Crafts Museum) founder Soetsu Yanagi,...
COMMENTARY / World
May 30, 2016

Britain at the crossroads as 'Brexit' vote looms

The 'Brexit' referendum is the most important vote in Europe in a half-century.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
May 8, 2016

Trump's Scottish island ties are a world away from fireworks of U.S. politics

Donald Trump has played up his family roots from Lewis, an island off the northwestern tip of Scotland, but his success in the U.S. Republican presidential battle has not drawn the kind of rapture the billionaire might like from his home crowd.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 7, 2016

Diabetes emerges as Japan's hidden scourge

Reading a review of British writer Bee Wilson's "First Bite: How We Learn to Eat" in the London Review of Books, I stumbled on an astonishing figure: 4 million people in the U.K. have diabetes. An unhealthy diet and increasingly sedentary lifestyle have taken their toll, causing a 65 percent surge in...
COMMENTARY / World
May 3, 2016

Andrew Jackson's reckoning with paper money

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew's decision to replace Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill reminds us of a delicious historic irony: He was an ardent critic of paper money.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Apr 23, 2016

You don't know what you've got (till it's gone) in Tokyo's nagaya

After hearing rumors that one of my favorite hideaways in Tokyo, the Sanuki Club, is slated for demolition, I stand outside the hotel's front gates with apprehension. Aside from offering some of the cheapest lodgings available in Minato Ward, the property's beer and barbecue terrace — tucked under...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 16, 2016

Saluting Shakespeare's scientific legacy

On April 23, the literary world marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. It's a good excuse for a lot of fuss: Britain's Royal Mint has produced a new £2 coin, the postal service has prepared a set of commemorative stamps depicting portraits of the Bard and thousands of theaters...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 5, 2016

'Trumpanomics' amounts to fantasy over fact

Donald Trump's math-challenged budget is awash in glaring contradictions.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 2, 2016

Job-hunting students may be in for a shock when they arrive at their new company

It's spring, and the attention of journalists in Japan turns to new university graduates who will soon become productive members of society. In recent years, the recruitment dance has merited closer scrutiny. Even as the labor situation has become a seller's market, issues persist with regard to employee...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 2, 2016

Japan's inescapable 'comfort women' problem

Tokyo and Seoul may believe they have resolved the "comfort women" problem after signing a joint agreement in December, but it's wishful thinking and confronts mounting evidence that this diplomatic deceit is already unraveling and falls short of the grand gesture needed to restore dignity to these victims...
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Apr 2, 2016

The drug problem that keeps getting older

Former pro baseball player Kazuhiro Kiyohara was released from police custody on ¥5 million bail last month following his arrest and subsequent indictment for alleged possession and use of stimulant drugs.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 21, 2016

Good news for discouraged American workers

America's job market is looking unexpectedly robust.
Japan Times
JAPAN / View from Osaka
Mar 19, 2016

A Japanese version of Trump isn't so far-fetched

"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."— H. L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 20, 2016

Deja vu as Shukan Shincho turns back the clock

The title of the Japanese government's White Paper on the Economy for the 31st year of Showa (1956) was "The 'postwar' era is over." That same year, a delegation from the World Bank headed by Alfred Watkins spent five months studying the feasibility of extending a loan for an expressway linking the cities...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 17, 2016

Time to recall FDR's words

The U.S and Europe must avoid becoming monsters in their efforts to defeat a monster.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jan 29, 2016

American legal principles and the Magna Carta

Henry Mittwer was a man of Japanese and American descent who stood up to the U.S. internment during World War II but in the end bore no rancor for that nation.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Jan 24, 2016

Graduates needn't be hostages to advance contracts

For university seniors who have pledged to work for a firm after graduation, although there is no legal compulsion, there is social and ethical pressure not to back out of the deal.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 21, 2016

The bill for China's flawed ascent is coming due

The Chinese government's contract with its 1.4 billion subjects is that it will deliver prosperity and they will be obedient. But how much longer can this deal continue?
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 11, 2016

Can the Republican Party survive its civil war?

The clash of values and policies among Republicans goes beyond Donald Trump.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Jan 2, 2016

Teens find spicy 'udders' keep boars at bay

A couple of weeks ago, I came home in the evening and found a wild boar on the porch. It had been bled and gutted, but otherwise it was still whole and hairy. I was very busy as I had to head off to Tokyo the next morning, but that present from some kindly local hunter in the Nagano Prefecture hills...
JAPAN / View from Osaka
Dec 19, 2015

Curtain finally falls on the 'Toru Hashimoto Show'

"Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 14, 2015

Abe and the media get ahead of themselves on driverless cars

In a new TV commercial for Nissan, American actress Charlotte Kate Fox, who appeared in last year's NHK morning drama series, "Massan," is driving on city streets at night. She pushes a button on the dashboard and slowly takes her hands off the steering wheel. The car continues to move, making turns...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 26, 2015

Are Americans No. 1? It depends

Americans have long been fascinated with global rankings and where they stand in them, but sometimes the results aren't all that impressive.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 5, 2015

Don't rule out a global recession next year

The global economy is not flirting with a new recession yet, but it's not a remote possibility either.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2015

The bobblehead race for the U.S. presidency

All of the current frontrunners in the U.S. presidential nomination process are deeply flawed, at almost comical levels.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 7, 2015

Will China crash and follow in Japan's footsteps?

If China experiences an economic fate similar to that of Japan, will it become more nationalistic abroad to distract from domestic disappointments?
Japan Times
WORLD / ANALYSIS
Sep 7, 2015

Rich gulf Arab nations' refugee response questioned

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, fellow Persian Gulf states raced to shelter thousands of displaced Kuwaitis. Fast forward 25 years, and the homeless from nearby Syria's war have found scant refuge in the Arab world's richest states.
JAPAN / View from Osaka
Aug 15, 2015

Antinuclear activists need injection of fresh ideas

One of the basic jobs of any journalist is to cover public demonstrations. Not only do they make for great stories, they also provide the reporter with a chance to play amateur social anthropologist by observing how the individuals and groups involved interact with each other, and the public, before,...

Longform

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