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JAPAN
May 23, 2009

Internet eyed as path to clean politics

The Nishimatsu Construction Co. fundraising scandal is shaking up the political landscape, with some lawmakers calling for removing businesses from the fundraising picture in favor of individual donations.
Reader Mail
May 10, 2009

Obama should not visit Hiroshima

Regarding Hiroshi Noro's April 26 letter, "Coexisting or co-perishing": While I fully agree with the writer that world leaders should take all necessary steps to ban nuclear weapons to save Earth, I do not believe that U.S. President Barack Obama should visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the leader of the...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 25, 2009

Farmers stung by bee shortage

It's high season for planting crops, but some farmers are facing an unexpected difficulty this year as they busily go about their work.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Mar 16, 2009

LDP is running on empty

Amid the dwindling approval rate of Prime Minister Taro Aso, triggered by a series of gaffes coming out of his own mouth and by disgraceful behavior of his right-hand man in the international arena, the conventional wisdom would call either for him to resign and hand over the reins of government to Ichiro...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Feb 24, 2009

What would the locals do? Readers offer their views

Following are readers' responses to Paul de Vries' Feb. 3 Zeit Gist article, "What would the locals do?":
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2009

Ruling bloc, opposition resume Diet squabbling

Key ruling bloc and opposition lawmakers exchanged barbs Thursday in the Diet, opening a new round of squabbling following the enactment of a contentious secondary budget just two days earlier.
COMMENTARY
Jan 16, 2009

Enough to put off a multi-tasker

LONDON — President-elect Barack Obama assumes power (Tuesday) at a time when the United States faces huge problems at home and abroad. Americans and people all around the world are looking to him for leadership and a return to the ideals set out in the U.S. Constitution.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 26, 2008

'Paris'/'Funny Games'

Director Cedric Klapisch's breakthrough film was 1996's "Chacun Cherche Son Chat" ("When The Cat's Away"), a documentary-like trifle about a lost cat that nevertheless seemed to say something essential about life in the anonymity of a big city. Klapisch set his film in Paris' 11th arrondisement, and...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 25, 2008

Rudd takes on climate change

SYDNEY — Christmas is the best time of year for Australian governments to announce bad news. So when Canberra says this country will spend big to help stop world pollution, holidaying citizens are less than stunned.
EDITORIALS
Dec 13, 2008

Failure of latest round

The latest round of the six-party talks on the denuclearization of North Korea ended Thursday, after the parties failed to agree on a protocol spelling out ways to verify an inventory of North Korea's nuclear programs. The North's refusal to put verification commitments into writing caused the failure....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 21, 2008

'Exiled '

In a Hong Kong diner several months before the peninsula was to be handed back to mainland China in 1997, I witnessed a scene between a portly local businessman and a suited gaijin. They were discussing a deal over a plastic table groaning with food — the gaijin had no appetite, but the Hong Kong businessman...
EDITORIALS
Nov 18, 2008

The G20 rises to the challenge

In retrospect, last weekend's meeting of world leaders to deal with the global economic crisis was fated to succeed. While such gatherings usually produce stale rhetoric and mere exhortations to take substantive action, this meeting produced an 11-page document with enough content to qualify as a genuine...
COMMENTARY
Nov 13, 2008

Advice on Asia for Obama

Foreign policy bloggers and pundits are already gushing forth with advice for President-elect Barack Obama. Allow me to add some of my own, at least as far as Asia policy is concerned.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 1, 2008

U.S. Treasury Secretary Paulson is wrong

CHICAGO — When a profitable company is hit by a very large liability, the solution is not to have the government buy its assets at inflated prices. The solution, instead, is protection under bankruptcy law, which in the United States means Chapter 11.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 26, 2008

Coming out of the shadows

"We judge that it will be best for the child that the (parent) pray from the shadows for his healthy upbringing. If worried about the child, ask about him through others, secretly watch him from behind a wall, and be satisfied with what is heard about the way he is growing up. Acting in accordance with...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 29, 2008

Reality of delisting North Korea

It may be premature to discuss the results of the recent six-party talks at this stage. One reason for that is that all observers agree that North Korea's nuclear report is not complete. No consensus has been reached on a method of verifying the credibility of the report.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jul 8, 2008

How do you feel about the Narita incident and "guinea pig" foreigners?

JAPAN
Jul 2, 2008

Activists urge Japan to curb nuclear lobbying

OSAKA — Antinuclear activists on Tuesday urged the government to stop advocating, both unilaterally and within the Group of Eight meetings, the expansion of nuclear power in Asia as a solution to reducing regional greenhouse gas emissions.
JAPAN / G8 COUNTDOWN
Jun 30, 2008

U.N. chief calls for leadership on setting midterm emissions cuts

KYOTO — U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said Sunday that while long-term goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are important, it is more critical that a post-Kyoto Protocol treaty with midterm targets be concluded in Copenhagen by next year.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 17, 2008

How hard is it really to learn Japanese?

As a language so distinct from most others, Japanese has an air of mystery about it.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 15, 2008

Stopping North Korea going nuclear

THE PENINSULA QUESTION: A Chronicle of the Second Korean Nuclear Crisis, by Yoichi Funabashi. Washington: Brookings Institution, 2007, 592 pp., $36.95 (cloth) NORTH KOREA ON THE BRINK: Struggle for Survival, by Glyn Ford with Soyoung Kwon. London: Pluto Press, 2008, 249 pp., £18.99 (cloth)
EDITORIALS
Jun 3, 2008

Emission-reduction targets

Environment ministers from the Group of Eight industrialized nations ended their recent meeting in Kobe by expressing a "strong political will" to agree at the July G8 summit in Toyako, Hokkaido, to reach a long-term goal of at least halving global greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050.
JAPAN
May 31, 2008

Japan joins effort to ban cluster bombs

Japan will agree on a draft convention to immediately and completely ban cluster bombs in principle, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said Friday, marking a shift in Tokyo's position on the controversial munitions.
Japan Times
JAPAN / G8 COUNTDOWN
May 30, 2008

Japan finding itself in hot water

SADO, Niigata Pref. — Kyuichi Sakano, head of Niigata's fixed shore net fishing association, sighed in dismay one day last December as his fishing boats came back yet again without any yellowtail.
EDITORIALS
May 10, 2008

A new era for Russia?

Mr. Dmitry Medvedev was sworn in as Russia's new president this week, promising protection of "civil and economic freedoms" and "a true respect for rule of law." For most new leaders, such language would suggest a break with the policies of his predecessor, but Russia's former president, Mr. Vladimir...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Mar 26, 2008

Can three experts all be wrong on looming disaster?

If you ask British scientist James Lovelock about the future of humanity, be prepared for a shock.
BUSINESS
Feb 8, 2008

Closer G7 coordination on monetary, fiscal policy unlikely

The Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank chiefs plan to discuss ways to deal with continuing global market turbulence, a credit crunch and U.S. recession fears during their one-day meeting Saturday in Tokyo, but few analysts expect them to agree on concerted international monetary or fiscal...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 30, 2008

Mass ignorance on 'half-human embryos'

On Sunday a couple of weeks ago, an extraordinary statement was read out in many churches in Britain. It had been prepared by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales with the aim of fomenting protests to Members of Parliament.

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