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COMMENTARY
Feb 29, 2012

Why China resists Western intervention in Syria

Intellectual precision is especially vital in times of geopolitical passion. The full totality of evil of the Syrian government is now on display for the entire world to see. The brutality of President Bashar Assad is beyond immense. And so the blame game has begun.
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2012

Victimized adults turn to help the kids

Mayumi Baba, 36, took part as a volunteer in a September meeting in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, held for children who lost parents in the March 11 disasters.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Feb 26, 2012

Gloom, doom — and Lester Brown's 'Plan B'

Anyone who has read any of the 50-plus books that Lester Brown has authored or co-authored (in any of the 40-odd languages into which they've been translated) might easily imagine him to be another gloomy environmentalist.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 25, 2012

Austerity — we've embraced it in the countryside

Austerity. It's a word steeped in meaning. No one is more aware of a stagnant economy than the Japanese people, who are spending less and learning to relish cheap, imported goods.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 24, 2012

Fiennes gets savage in Shakespeare's 'Coriolanus'

An angry mob of protesters waving banners and wielding bats advances on a government building protected by black-clad riot police. Hooded hotheads break open the gates and all hell breaks loose.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 19, 2012

Has anything changed? Americans still feel the need for moral supremacy

When he published his brilliant cartoon in the Washington Post on Dec. 12, 1961, American cartoonist Herblock, may, oddly enough, just as well have been addressing one of the primary concerns of today's political debate in the United States.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WEEK 3
Feb 19, 2012

Avant-garde shamaness takes a poetic journey to the Californian suburbs

In a YouTube clip from February 2011, Hiromi Ito begins a reading of an excerpt from her narrative poem "I Am Anjuhimeko (Watashi wa Anjuhimeko de aru)" at the Museum of Modern Aomori Literature by banging the palm of her hand loudly and repeatedly on the desk in front of her. She sits down, squares...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 17, 2012

'TeZukA' animates the stage

Choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is nutty about anime and manga. Speaking to him at a cafe in his native Antwerp, Cherkaoui drops all the right names into his conversation and gets as giddy as an otaku (obsessive) discussing Japanese pop culture.
Reader Mail
Feb 16, 2012

Japan remains the best choice

Regarding the Feb. 12 editorial, "Japan: failure or success?": I worked in Japan during the bubble period and often return to work for large Japanese clients. I have observed the changes over 25 years and understand the pessimism. Everything considered, Japan is the best country in the world, it has...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 16, 2012

Spiritualized forgets the past and moves on with 'Sweet Heart Sweet Light'

It is just four days before Christmas but Jason Pierce seems oblivious to festive cheer. The leader of influential space-rockers Spiritualized, sitting in the home studio where he has spent the last two years creating the band's forthcoming seventh album "Sweet Heart Sweet Light," has issues on his mind....
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Feb 14, 2012

Economists think about soaking the rich, a little

The government could solve its deficit problems if it taxed savings.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 11, 2012

Enjoying the quiet life in Kanazawa, in black and white

Coincidence can shape people's lives in many ways. Ask Mark Hammond, and he will certainly agree.
COMMENTARY
Feb 10, 2012

Russia should back up a bit to find road to the future

I am not going to speak about a time machine and America but about Russia and its urgent need to return to the past in search of a tool to secure a better future.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 9, 2012

Turkey's AKP is no role model for Arab countries

Many in Washington have been debating whether Turkey's governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) could be a model for the Arab Spring, as our neighbors in the Middle East aspire to get rid of totalitarian regimes and become true democracies. But the reality in Turkey makes clear that the AKP model...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 5, 2012

Stressful times lead to rise in child-abuse cases

Who can contemplate a newborn infant unmoved by its helplessness? Few living things are as vulnerable; none for anywhere near as long. Far beyond infancy, into childhood and adolescence, human beings are, if not utterly at the mercy of circumstances beyond their control, at least impressionable to a...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 4, 2012

Craft beer connoisseur knows his suds

Domestic and imported craft beers have found an ever-growing number of Japanese fans in recent years, and festivals in major cities and smaller towns have offered the public a chance to sample numerous ales, lagers and porters, as well as a variety of German beers and more exotic concoctions that contain...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 31, 2012

Back in Russia: peeling, meeting and shopping

In mid-December, while trying to understand what was happening in Russia, I checked Twitter and found a tweet that somehow signified everything.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / MLB
Jan 18, 2012

Griffey pitches in to aid Japan

If there was one thing former MLB superstar Ken Griffey Jr. was known for during his playing days — well aside from that oh-so sweet swing and his wall-climbing antics in center field at the Kingdome in Seattle — it was his smile.
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Jan 18, 2012

'Stealth marketing' by companies is polluting online forums

You may have heard that the underbelly of the Japanese Web revolves around a massive bulletin-board service called 2-channel (pronounced ni-channel), where people can post messages anonymously. For Japanese, who find it difficult to freely express their opinions in public, that anonymity has meant that...
COMMENTARY
Jan 16, 2012

Finer details of atmospheric science in Beijing

In July 2009, China's Foreign Ministry made a demand of the American embassy: Stop taking measurements of air pollution in Beijing available to ordinary Chinese since they conflicted with official data and could lead to "confusion" among the public and undesirable "social consequences."
JAPAN
Jan 12, 2012

Suicides top 30,000 for 14th straight year

2011 appears to be the 14th straight year for the annual suicide count to exceed 30,000, according to tentative statistics recently released by the National Police Agency.
EDITORIALS
Jan 7, 2012

Bumpy road ahead for Mr. Noda

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, at a new year news conference Jan. 4, expressed his determination to push a two-stage raise of the consumption tax as well as to reform the social welfare system, and called for the opposition forces to join consultations with his Democratic Party of Japan over the issue....
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 1, 2012

For how much longer will Japan's fate remain in the hands of amateurs?

As we enter into a new year in which last year's greatest event is still, dreadfully, uppermost in the mind of everyone in Japan, let's pause to think hard about the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, the tsunami it triggered, and the release into the environment of radioactive substances from...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Jan 1, 2012

A breath of fire for nature this new Year of the Dragon

May I wish all our readers, in Japan and abroad, a very happy New Year. After 2011, I think we need one.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 31, 2011

Year of the dragon — it'll be a hot one

The year of the dragon, (tatsu, ryu or ryo in Japanese) is upon us — and now just hours before the New Year, I can see the dragon peeking out of his lair, counting down the seconds until he is allowed to take over the world for a year. As midnight approaches, he waits . . . 10, 9, 8, 7, ready to pounce...
EDITORIALS
Dec 30, 2011

Nurturing guardians for the elderly

As the graying of the population progresses, Japan will see a rapid increase in the number of elderly people living alone or suffering from senile dementia. In the past, their relatives acted like their guardians. But the spread of nuclear families will make it difficult for relatives such as siblings...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 29, 2011

Shonen Knife celebrates 30 years

Today we celebrate 30 years under the Knife. Yes, it was on Dec. 29, 1981, that three teenage girls — Naoko Yamano, her sister Atsuko and their friend Mitchie Nakatani — entered an Osaka rehearsal studio for the first time. They emerged as Shonen Knife.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 24, 2011

Volunteers' hugs warm tsunami-hit Ofunato

When the March 11 earthquake and tsunami hit northeastern Japan, numerous volunteer organizations rushed to help the survivors with basic necessities like food and clothing.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight