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JAPAN
Mar 8, 2013

Ceremony to mark '52 return to sovereignty

An official ceremony commemorating the 61st anniversary of the date the San Francisco Peace Treaty, officially ending World War II, came into force will be held on April 28, government officials said Thursday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 7, 2013

Edward Steichen's great American Dream

“I don't think that many people in Japan know who Edward Steichen is,” says curator Miki Tsukada in a surprisingly honest comment about visitors to the Setagaya Art Museum's current exhibition.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 7, 2013

Where's the world policeman when you need one?

With the international scene looking more unstable than it has since the fall of the Berlin Wall, how can Japan respond more readily to threats to peace?
Reader Mail
Mar 7, 2013

International outlook lacking

Fisheries minister Yoshimasa Hayashi's is quoted as saying in the Feb. 28 AFP article "Japan will never stop whaling: fisheries chief" that he doesn't "think there will be any kind of an end for whaling by Japan." This shows, at the very least, a poor sense of responsibility and a very narrow point of...
Reader Mail
Mar 7, 2013

Not so fast to speaking digitally

In his March 3 article, Roger Pulvers implies that translation and interpreting are one and the same, that everyone has a computer and/or smartphone at hand, that they can access these speedily, and that translation/interpreting tools are, or soon will be, so good that we won't have to struggle to speak/write/read...
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 6, 2013

Japan and Australia: natural allies in the changing Pacific

Does the U.S. pivot to the Pacific represent a necessary rebalancing, overbalancing or counter-balancing against China's growing wealth, power and assertiveness?
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 4, 2013

Italian election gives Europeans a reality check

For a while, Europe's political elites had convinced themselves the worst of the euro crisis had passed. Italy's latest election quashes this optimism.
Reader Mail
Mar 3, 2013

More women for Seoul politics

Regarding the Feb. 26 AP article "South's Park slow to pick women for top positions": As a Korean, I can say that it is true that discrimination against women in the workplace is a big issue in South Korea. And I'm looking forward to seeing changes in this area just as we welcomed the election of the...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 3, 2013

Solution to bullying lies in 'resetting' culprits

"The biggest problem in Japanese education is the idea that you can eliminate bullying by reforming the system."
Reader Mail
Mar 3, 2013

One Australian's view of whaling

I live in Tasmania and would like to speak against the comments by Japanese fisheries minister Yoshimasa Hayashi that were quoted in the Feb. 28 AFP article "Japan will never stop whaling: fisheries chief." Here in Australia, we hear that:
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / CHUBU CONNECTION
Mar 2, 2013

Russia meteor explosion shines light on Aichi's 'cape of stars'

The second-oldest meteorite in Japan, the Minamino, is housed in Yobitsugi Shrine in Nagoya.
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 2, 2013

Killer robots must be stopped, say campaigners

A new global campaign to persuade nations to ban "killer robots" before they reach the production stage is to be launched in the United Kingdom by a group of academics, pressure groups and Nobel peace prize laureates.
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 2, 2013

Remembering the day Napster set music free

In the first weeks of 2000 the founders of Napster were in their office above a bank in San Mateo, California, considering dizzying numbers. Figures scrawled on a whiteboard told how many people around the world had installed their file-sharing application and were using it to download music from each...
EDITORIALS
Mar 2, 2013

Mr. Abe's plan for Japan

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday delivered his second policy speech during the current Diet session. He started his speech with the phrase "a strong Japan." He seems to have strong attachment to the word "strong." At the outset of his speech, he said a strong Japan is "for us, not somebody else"...
EDITORIALS
Mar 1, 2013

Treat all students equally

The education ministry on Feb. 20 revised an ordinance to exclude so-called Korean high schools or pro-North Korea high schools from the government's tuition-waiver program. This change will cause various problems.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 28, 2013

JFK's daughter top candidate as envoy to Japan

Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, is a leading candidate to become the next U.S. ambassador to Japan, two sources say.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 28, 2013

The long arm of the antipiracy law

Captured half a world away, off the coast of Oman in the Indian Ocean, four Somalis are sent to Tokyo to stand trial for piracy after a failed attempt to hijack an oil tanker. Three have already been convicted by the Tokyo District Court.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 28, 2013

Education miracles in remote Japan

It will be hard finding a replacement for the late Dr. Mineo Nakajima, who oversaw the development of a prestigious university in Akita Prefecture.
Reader Mail
Feb 28, 2013

Hangings aren't worth the risk

Regarding the Feb. 22 front-page article "Three murderers sent to the gallows": These three committed barbaric crimes and there is no doubt about their guilt, it seems. However, not all cases are so clear-cut. No criminal justice system is perfect, and mistakes can result in the judicial killing of innocents....
Reader Mail
Feb 28, 2013

No meat to vegetarian story

I consider the headline for Philip Brasor's Feb. 24 Media Mix article, "Japan's vegetarians stay in the closet," misleading. Most of the story is not about the vegetarian situation in Japan, but rather a discussion of animal rights. I have no idea what the author really wanted to say with regard to vegetarians...
Reader Mail
Feb 28, 2013

Too willing to send others to war

Hisahiko Okazaki's Feb. 20 article, "Japan's step toward normalcy," sounds like jingoistic bunkum. He suggests that Japan was left of center politically (during the Cold War), because less than 50 percent of the respondents surveyed were willing to fight to defend the country. According to Okazaki, it...
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 27, 2013

Boosting the Japan-U.S. alliance

If the two countries work to tackle problems in their own societies, the Japan-U.S. partnership could be as significant in the future as it has ever been.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 27, 2013

Stuck in a rut: why can't the U.S. move forward?

"Your dearest wish is for our state structure and ideological system never to change, to remain as they are for centuries. But history is not like that. Every system either finds away to develop or else collapses."
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Feb 26, 2013

Who'll repair Japan's roads?

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's grandiose plan to reinforce the nation's infrastructure could end up being a pie in the sky unless more attention is paid to details.
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Feb 26, 2013

I've seen haras . . . haras that you've seen: when 'harassment' goes wild

In response to the article "Blame it on the hara: harassment vocabulary makes us all victims" (The Foreign Element, Jan. 28), we invited readers to come up with their own ideas for new types of "harassment." As you can see, one JT writer got a bit carried away.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 26, 2013

Healthy paths to inevitable peace in the Mideast

Peace between Israelis and Palestinians will not be achieved overnight, but it is only through a massive effort involving the citizenry that reconciliation and cooperation can occur between both peoples.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 26, 2013

For China's Catholics, new pope is a cause for hope

Of the long list of problems the next pope will inherit once the white smoke rises in Rome, few on the diplomatic front can rival the bitter, intractable relationship between the Vatican and the Chinese government.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 25, 2013

Nonsensical doomsday scenario for the West

The world's center of economic gravity may have shifted to Asia, but it'll take more than China to eat Westerners' lunch. A coherent bloc is not there.

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