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COMMENTARY / World
Apr 9, 2015

The BBC's worldwide coverage is losing its way

BBC worldwide coverage is increasingly losing its way, suffering from budget cuts, dumbing down of content, loss of news priorities and a sacrifice of a true world view.
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Apr 8, 2015

Inward-looking election campaign reflects Britain's global retreat

Britain's membership in the European Union hangs on the outcome of a knife-edge election in four weeks' time, but the issue and that of the country's wider global role have been largely absent from a campaign narrowly focused on domestic worries.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 6, 2015

On the right path, China must cut coal reliance

China's recent progress in reducing emissions shows that, with the right combination of government policies, corporate initiatives, and public pressure, even the largest and most polluted countries can clean up their act.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 1, 2015

Robert Altman has his fingerprints all over 'Birdman'

In 1992 Robert Altman made "The Player," a scathing satire on how shallow Hollywood filmmaking had become, and it came damn close to winning him an Oscar for best director. The next year, he made "Short Cuts," based on the stories of Raymond Carver, and again came up short at the Oscars.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / Japan Pulse
Apr 1, 2015

Flushed with success: Innovative new toilet accessory to offer full body wash

Bidet-type commodes equipped with built-in washers and pre-warmed seats made news after Japan's media reported that they were enjoying heady demand.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 31, 2015

'Tenimyu' 2.5-D shows net over 2 million tickets sold

There's kabuki, noh, butoh, bunraku, regular plays, glitzy musicals and Japan's unique all-female Takarazuka musical theater troupe — but another home-grown performance-art genre has for some time been carving a niche in this country's diverse entertainment world in the shape of so-called 2.5-D musicals....
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
Mar 23, 2015

How Europe and U.S. stumbled into spat over China-led bank

Sometimes geopolitical shifts happen by accident rather than design.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 23, 2015

Redouble efforts to close the EU-Turkey gap

Never have the European Union and Turkey needed one another more, and yet rarely have they been so distant.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 23, 2015

Supplementary aids place teachers on thin ice

Teachers in Japan, as in the U.S., may find themselves without legal cover if they choose to use supplementary classroom materials that they've picked out themselves.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 21, 2015

Why Asia should welcome the Fed's 'taper'

Asian governments will need to act differently if U.S. Fed 'tapering' leaves less money sloshing around global markets. Challenges like excess money supply will seem preferable to massive capital outflows.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 18, 2015

The real lesson from the Clinton email imbroglio

The flap over Hillary Clinton's use of private email reflects the tension between the drive for transparency and the instinct for privacy.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 17, 2015

Japan's accounting problem

Japan's 'lost decades' were not quite as disastrous as commonly assumed.
WORLD / Science & Health
Mar 13, 2015

Scientists want DNA-changing tests on human embryos, eggs stopped

With rumors that scientists are about to announce they have modified the genes of human eggs, sperm, or embryos, five prominent researchers on Thursday called on biologists to halt such experiments due to fears about safety and eugenics.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 7, 2015

Where will 'proactive pacifism' lead us?

Seventy years after World War II ended, should we be thinking about war or about peace?
EDITORIALS
Mar 6, 2015

A brutal murder in Moscow

The assassination of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov last week shows that Nemtsov himself might have overestimated the state of affairs when he said in an interview the day before his death that Russia's opposition was at the absolute low point.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 4, 2015

Mujin Chitai (No Man's Zone)

Director: Toshi Fujiwara Language: Japanese (subtitled in English)
WORLD / Politics
Mar 3, 2015

Obama says Iran must halt key nuclear work for at least a decade

Iran must commit to a verifiable freeze of at least 10 years on sensitive nuclear activity for a landmark atomic deal to be reached, but the odds are still against sealing a final agreement, U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 27, 2015

Video artist Duncan Campbell sees between the lines

When Irish artist Duncan Campbell won the Turner Prize last December, it was met with both high praise and criticism, as often happens with the notoriously controversial event. But perhaps such a difference in perception is appropriate.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 17, 2015

The world is less dangerous than we imagine

The world is a dangerous place and can be even more so by making errors bred by unwarranted pessimism.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / ANALYSIS
Feb 17, 2015

China's defense budget expected to defy economic lilt

President Xi Jinping is expected to authorize robust defense spending for this year despite China's slowing economy, determined to strengthen the country's armed capabilities amid growing unease in Beijing at Washington's renewed focus on Asia.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 15, 2015

Kerry's international order challenges disorder

U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry disagrees with cynics who say the international order is unraveling. He sees the world working together as hard as ever to end the Ebola pandemic, reduce nuclear proliferation, achieve an accord on climate change and curb strife in Africa and the Mideast.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Feb 10, 2015

Singapore food fling provides 'messy and satisfying' feast

It's Friday night and I'm staring death in the face. The face in question happens to belong to a red snapper, and it's peeking out from the dark depths of powerful tamarind broth shimmering with crimson chili oil.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 9, 2015

Lowering the bar for economic performance

Regardless of how much progressives try to play up the U.S. economic recovery by lowering the bar for perfornance, the lingering anemia is astonishing, given the plummeting energy prices.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS / TYSON-DOUGLAS SHOCKER REVISITED
Feb 6, 2015

Lampley remembers historic fight in Tokyo

Second in a series
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 5, 2015

Facebook diplomacy on the Ukrainian front

Dramatic dispatches of diplomacy from a Ukrainian tank officer underscore social media's ability to keep soldiers and their commanders on Ukraine's eastern battlefield in touch with friends and families.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2015

Welfare state rises as exceptionalism declines

America's national character will have to be changed if progressives are going to implement their agenda to increase the size of the entitlement state.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 31, 2015

Diplomatic blundering on hostages and history

Japan's latest hostage crisis has exposed shortcomings in Japan's public diplomacy and raises questions about the advice Prime Minister Shinzo Abe received in publicly announcing $200 million in humanitarian aid to help those displaced by conflict with the Islamic State group.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 30, 2015

Japan's hope may be found in its hinterlands

As the European Central Bank prepares to inject up to a trillion euros into Europe's faltering economy, it would be wise to study Japan's lackluster experience with massive quantitative easing.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 24, 2015

Can the DPJ reinvigorate Japanese democracy?

Columbia University's Gerald Curtis recently wrote, "It is a sad commentary on Japan's politics that after nearly 70 years of democracy a competitive party system has all but disintegrated."

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past