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COMMENTARY / World
Jul 11, 2013

Who'll stand for spied-on?

By hearing only the state side of the story, the U.S. secret surveillance courts lose the appearance of impartiality. Court disputes need to have adversaries.
EDITORIALS
Jul 1, 2013

Mr. Snowden's revelations

There is real debate over whether Edward Snowden is a whistleblower for civil rights violations or a traitor who has harmed U.S. national security.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Jun 2, 2013

British wave washes over U.S. media market

The British are coming — actually, they're already here. And they're running some of America's top media and entertainment companies and successfully peddling their shows, newspapers and magazines to the former colonies.
COMMENTARY / World
May 26, 2013

Inaction during 'scandal' will undo a presidency

Few, if any, similarities exist between the redactions of the Benghazi e-mails and the deletions and distortions made by Richard Nixon in his taped conversations.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN WEB WATCH
May 15, 2013

Google Glass may shatter Japan's 'manner' mode

Google Glass is the latest mobile Internet gadget to grab headlines. Resembling a pair of glasses, the futuristic device enables wearers to access the Internet — in particular Google's search, maps and translation functions — as long as they have a Wifi or Bluetooth connection. The mini computer...
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Dec 19, 2012

2012 has been a big year on the Japanese social-media scene

Twitter continues to ride high. Facebook has grown a lot, but newcomer Line seems set to overtake it. Social game companies Gree and Mobage have shifted their overseas expansion into high gear. And Mixi finally admits that it needs to try harder to understand what its members want. In this month's column,...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Dec 16, 2012

Frailty rising as a medical condition

As a medical resident 30 years ago, Ava Kaufman remembers puzzling over some of the elderly patients who came to the primary-care practice at George Washington University Hospital. They weren't really ill, at least not with any identifiable diseases. But they weren't well, either.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Nov 6, 2012

If you need to bring drugs to Japan, sort out the paperwork — or else

Reader BM wants to know if morphine can be brought into Japan legally, and if having a tattoo would prevent her from visiting bathing facilities.
EDITORIALS
Oct 26, 2012

A travesty of justice

The police have apologized to four people for mistakenly arresting them over threats posted on the Internet. The police admitted their error after it became evident that the threats had been made by a still unknown person who hacked their computers — but not before the police had extracted confessions...
EDITORIALS
Oct 18, 2012

Improve policing of cyber crimes

The Osaka prefectural police arrested a man from Suita, Osaka Prefecture, on Aug. 26 and the Mie prefectural police arrested a man from Tsu, Mie Prefecture, on Sept. 14, both on suspicion of posting threatening announcements on the Internet that heinous crimes would take place. Subsequently the Osaka...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Oct 14, 2012

Why stem-cell science thrives in Japan

It's easy to take for granted the epic scale of what some scientists are attempting these days. When the news broke a couple of weeks ago that Japanese scientists had turned normal cells from a mouse into eggs, and then fertilized them and seen them develop into baby mice, I thought it was pretty cool....
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Sep 25, 2012

Backsliding Japan Post broadens its horizons on all fronts

Is Japan Post proceeding with privatization or backtracking to its old model?
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Sep 24, 2012

Indecent proposals: the language of Japanese dating spam

It started with an email from a 20-year-old college student called Emi, who told me she was looking for a Showa umare no dansei (昭和生まれの男性, a man born in Showa, i.e., born before 1989). Next was Norika, a bored housewife in her early thirties asking me to spend some himajikan (ヒマ時間,...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 19, 2012

Net shopping means unending flow of counterfeit brand-name goods

Luxury-brand bags, watches and shoes can easily be purchased on the Internet along with their cheaper counterfeit counterparts, which are illegal but nonetheless widespread.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Apr 15, 2012

Wild Watch turns 30 this month

As April 2nd's 30th anniversary of my first Wild Watch column in The Japan Times neared, I was in India — teeming Delhi to be precise, with its cacophony of people, honking traffic and barking dogs, though a tailorbird would stop and call outside my window, where a palm squirrel never tired of chattering....
EDITORIALS
Mar 14, 2012

Loss of bonds a growing problem

A series of incidents in which people who had received no help from others citizens or local governments and apparently died alone raises concerns that human ties in Japanese society are growing increasingly thin and that the nation's social safety net has serious holes.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 25, 2011

When will the Japanese media stop avoiding antinuke sentiment?

On Dec. 15, freelance journalist Tomohiko Suzuki held a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan about his new book, "Yakuza and Nuclear Power," which describes Suzuki's stint as a worker on cleanup detail at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear reactor last summer. Though the book...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Dec 20, 2011

Replacing your alien card; blasts from the past

Anita recently lost her alien registration card and is planning to leave on New Year's Day for an overseas trip, so she needs a replacement right away:
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 4, 2011

Mass media not clean in soap-allergy controversy

Two weeks ago, the health ministry announced that at least 471 people have suffered severe allergic reactions related to the use of a facial soap called Cha no Shizuku. Sixty-six of these people have also been hospitalized. In May, Yuuka, the direct sales company that markets the soap, started recalling...
JAPAN
Nov 16, 2011

Soap linked to 471 cases of wheat allergy

A mail-order soap has caused at least 471 people to suffer wheat allergy reactions, including unconsciousness, and the distributor and manufacturer are trying to recall millions of the bars while the health ministry is alerting consumers to the dangers.
COMMENTARY
Oct 6, 2011

Integration outlook for ex-Soviets

It is well known that, in the political field, the 20th century brought about a strong and, as it turned out, omnipresent trend toward disintegration of former empires and the formation in their place of nation-states all over the crumbling colonial world.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 24, 2011

What a difference a friend's tales of 'hair on the heart' can still make

"Shinzo ni Ke ga Haeteiru Wake" is the intriguing title of a book published in April by Kadokawa. The book was written by my good friend, Mari Yonehara, and its title in English would be "That's Why Hair Grows on the Heart."
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
May 27, 2011

Niigata brings down curtain on Hirose era

After 11 seasons at the helm, Masaya Hirose's tenure as Niigata Albirex BB coach has ended.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Apr 26, 2011

Tokyo: What magazines do you read here in Japan?

Jenny Wright
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Apr 22, 2011

Lack of action makes it tough for Albirex BB

The Niigata Albirex BB will enter the postseason after a remarkably light schedule in recent weeks. So light in fact that it's easy to forget when the team actually played games in back-to-back weeks.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji