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COMMENTARY / World
Jun 13, 2014

Kagan and the ruin of ideas

Neocon commentator Robert Kagan's belief — detailed in his new book 'The World America Made' — that the world will benefit from a benevolent American suzerainty, despite the side effects of the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghan wars, beggars the imagination.
EDITORIALS
Jun 12, 2014

Dangerous turn in ODA policy

The Abe administration should give up on a plan to change the government's basic policy on official development assistance in ways that could see aid used for the armed forces of foreign countries.
Reader Mail
Jun 11, 2014

New paradigm for the Olympics

Regarding the June 2 Reuters article "Architect blasts new Tokyo Olympics stadium as 'a sin, a crime' ": The pleas by the Japan Sports Council and by architect Edward Suzuki do not really contain in my mind a reasonable and convincing critique of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics stadium as proposed by Zaha Hadid,...
Reader Mail
Jun 11, 2014

Abductions by any other name

The June 9 Kyodo article "Japan sends list of 470 potential abductees to North Korea" made me think. No one can begin to criticize the Japanese authorities for continuing to take a firm stand on this issue in the face of continued stalling on the part of an evil and untrustworthy state such as North...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 10, 2014

Why don't more American soldiers walk away?

American news media portrays Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and his apparent decision to simply walk away from the war in Afghanistan as bizarre and incomprehensible. Yet some wonder why it doesn't happen all the time.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 10, 2014

Obama administration waging war on media

Insiders say the pressure of America's powerful national security apparatus and the fear among White House aides of facing the wrath of the intelligence community has made the once-media-friendly President Barack Obama appear neo-Nixonian.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 9, 2014

ASIJ announces investigation into sex abuse

An independent investigation will examine late teacher Jack Moyer's suspected sexual abuse of scores of female students and why American School in Japan officials apparently allowed his attacks to continue unabated despite students' warnings.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jun 7, 2014

Japan's efforts bring back 'extinct' species

Oriental stork 73; crested ibis 82; red-crowned crane 1,143; short-tailed albatross estimated 3,550. Those numbers of wild birds in Japan seem perilously low — and they are, especially when considered alongside the Japanese population of 126.75 million people — but in reality they are good news!...
Reader Mail
Jun 7, 2014

Brazil big enough for the World Cup

After reading Chikako Nakayama's May 29 article, "World Cup without succor," I would like to make a few observations, as the writer failed to grasp two basic aspects of Brazil's current political and economic state.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 6, 2014

Abe drops SDF combat mission proposal

Japan's security talks take a twist as Prime Minister Abe's team says the SDF won't take missions in combat zones, after trying earlier to scrap the term 'non-combat zone.'
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jun 6, 2014

Fans go nuts for Shiga banana carver

An electrician by day and banana artist by night, Keisuke Yamada has attained renown at home and abroad for his banana sculptures.
Reader Mail
Jun 4, 2014

A coup from a different view

Regarding the May 29 AP article "Thai troops detain Cabinet minister who blasted coup": Over the past week I found myself in the midst of the second coup since I came to Thailand, and the news, as reported by the Western media, has appeared fundamentally flawed. I am hoping that the lack of understanding...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 3, 2014

What really happened at Tiananmen?

In recent years the Tiananmen Square 'massacre' story has taken something of a beating as people in the square that night, including a Spanish TV unit, have emerged to tell us that there was no massacre in the square.
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Jun 2, 2014

Letters: What did ASIJ know of Moyer sex abuse and why was nothing done?

Readers want to know why children's accounts of abuse by American School in Japan teacher Jack Moyer were not acted upon much earlier.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Jun 2, 2014

Generation gaps filled by brick and mortar

Though their numbers have dwindled in the developed world over the past century, multi-generation households are still common, and in fact may become even more common in countries where income gaps are increasing. In Japan, multi-generation households have social relevance owing to cultural norms, the...
WORLD / Politics
Jun 1, 2014

Cameron warns of Juncker election

British Prime Minister David Cameron has warned he would no longer be able to guarantee that Britain would remain a member of the European Union if European leaders elect Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission chief, Germany's Spiegel said.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 1, 2014

Gourmet comic stokes Fukushima ire

The popular manga series 'Oishinbo' came under fire again on May 12 after a character based on a real-life former mayor refers, in the manga's latest issue, to Fukushima Prefecture as unlivable because of the radiation leaking from the ruined power plant there.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 31, 2014

Media eyes trend-setting Sony's loss of momentum

Let's travel back 62 years. On the evening of Dec. 4, 1952, after NHK radio signed off its regular AM programming, an announcer proclaimed: "Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo and NHK now commence a joint experimental stereo broadcast."
BUSINESS / Tech
May 31, 2014

Privacy ruling by EU puts ISPs in pickle

Google and other Internet companies find themselves in a quandary over how to strike a balance between privacy and freedom of information as the world's top search engine took a first step toward upholding an EU privacy ruling.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
May 31, 2014

Diamonds are suddenly everybody's best friend

Dealers are flocking to Japan to buy up all those gems 'sleeping' in people's dresser drawers.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
May 30, 2014

As male hunters dwindle, 'hunter girls' take up shotguns

"Hunter girls" are taking up the sport of hunting to protect farmers' crops as the demographic changes sweeping Japan erode its traditionally male participants.
EDITORIALS
May 30, 2014

Shaky grounds for Abe's defense bid

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe takes up the issue of collective self-defense in the Diet for the first time since he announced his desire to seek related changes to the government's long-standing interpretation of the Constitution. The scenarios he used to push his case seem unlikely.
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
May 30, 2014

TPP no longer about free trade

It appears that the Trans-Pacific Partnership will be degraded to a system of 'nonfree trade' that will increase the involvement of bureaucrats and inject huge subsidies to certain interest groups.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
May 28, 2014

Japan: a haven for the psychologically troubled

For the troubled Western expat in Japan, the reality of being on another continent can collide with normalized Japanese antisocialism to form a cocktail effective in tuning out a lot of the 'just be a normal adult' voices.
EDITORIALS
May 28, 2014

The danger of provocation

Japanese and Chinese leaders need to resolve problems through diplomatic dialogue instead of talking about military responses to each other's moves.
Reader Mail
May 28, 2014

Foreign workers are not robots

Regarding the May 19 article "Success of 'Abenomics' hinges on immigration policy": Japan's demographic, economic and social future must be planned beyond Abenomics. What the Abe administration seems to be hinting at — an "immigration" policy divorced from an "immigrant" policy — is a symptom of...
Reader Mail
May 28, 2014

Crack down on unpaid overtime

Regarding the May 21 Bloomberg article "Foreign domestics seen as aiding working mothers": I have to say that the solution to keeping women in the workplace and to increasing family size lies not with either increasing the number of domestic helpers (which would benefit only those women who could afford...
Reader Mail
May 28, 2014

To live in a place free of garbage

The May 20 Bloomberg article "Trash troubles pile up in China's Garbage Era" reminded me of my first trip to China as a student of Chinese four years ago. It was a trip mainly to the former "Manchukuo," a Japanese puppet country before and during the war. In the major cities of Harbin and Changchun,...

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