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Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 3, 2015

Two kamikaze pilots, two late reprieves, one pacifist view

Hisashi Tezuka knew his life had been spared when he heard the Emperor's voice crackling through the wireless.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 2, 2015

Terrorism is low on the list of dangers threatening Japan

The history of the U.S. and other Western democracies since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 has been a depressing tale of massive over-reactions to a very limited threat.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 2, 2015

China's real property problem is in the supply

Various price-boosting schemes that have helped China ward off the kind of downturn that befell America in the late 2000s are no loner likely to have the same impact today, because China's real property problem has shifted from the demand side to the supply side.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Mar 2, 2015

Netanyahu flies to U.S.; signs of some easing of tensions over Iran speech seen

The United States and Israel showed signs of seeking to defuse tensions on Sunday ahead of a speech in Washington by Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu when he will warn against a possible nuclear deal with Iran.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2015

Don't expect Twitter feeds to tame terrorism

The Obama administration should stop the gaseous rhetoric about countering terrorism by elevating digital footprints. Twitter feeds from the State Department won't tame terrorism.
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.
EDITORIALS
Feb 27, 2015

Chipping away at civilian control

The Abe administration plans to abolish a legal mechanism ensuring that high-ranking civilian officials of the Defense Ministry maintain authority over uniformed officers of the Self-Defense Forces.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 27, 2015

China's fertile ground for the Islamic State group

Chinese authorities probably won't be assured by the likelihood of Uighurs who were driven out of Xinjiang and spent time with the Islamic State group taking a path that leads home.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 27, 2015

Netanyahu tars Europe for anti-Semitism of terrorists

As he beats the drum for his Likud's Party re-election in mid-March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu falsely asserts that anti-Semitism is responsible for growing European and American hostility toward Israel.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 25, 2015

Visionary firms on the wrong side of 'Abenomics'

The Abe adminstration's retrograde focus on a lower exchange rate is arguably doing the economy more harm than good.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Feb 25, 2015

Obama vetoes Republican attempt to force Keystone pipeline approval

President Barack Obama issued his third veto Tuesday to reject legislation that would allow construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, escalating a battle over the project with Republicans in Congress.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 24, 2015

China may be stalling out, and that's alright

China's shrinking population and the slowing of migration to cities means there are enough jobs to go around even as its economic growth slows.
EDITORIALS
Feb 23, 2015

Yemen's disintegration

Sustained chaos in Yemen could allow violent groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida to use the country as a base for operations elsewhere.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 23, 2015

Russia will never 'submit' to U.S.

American treatment of Russia since the Cold War has been an historical mistake — and though doubtless too late now, such a course is still ours to unmake before it is too late.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2015

Iran's poison-penned peace letter to Obama

A letter that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is reported to have sent to President Barack Obama, saying Iran was open to a more direct alliance against the Islamic State group if negotiators could iron out a deal on Tehran's nuclear program, should be viewed as coming from a poison pen.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Feb 21, 2015

Inside the trenches of environmental rights

With the gruesome beheadings of journalists in the Middle East, an ugly truth is now common knowledge — being a reporter can be deadly.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 21, 2015

Kyoto: An Urban History of Japan's Premodern Capital

Matthew Stavros is a historian of early Japan at the University of Sydney, and I imagine that reading his book on Kyoto's inception through to its medieval period is rather like attending a series of his lectures.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2015

Islamic State's best recruiting tool is boredom

Many of the young people drawn to the Islamic State group, particularly those born far away from the Middle East and North Africa, are just plain bored, and no amount of education and political reform will curb the temptation to be part of a movement that claims to be changing history.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Feb 20, 2015

Gay marriage push in Japan faces constitutional barrier

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has fought to alter the Constitution on matters of security, is less eager to oppose its principles when it comes to same-sex marriage.
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 20, 2015

China to project power from artificial islands in South China Sea

China's creation of artificial islands in the South China Sea is happening so fast that Beijing will be able to extend the range of its navy, air force, coast guard and fishing fleets before long, much to the alarm of rival claimants to the contested waters.
Japan Times
WORLD
Feb 19, 2015

Fierce crackdown on dissent no laughing matter in Egypt

When President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said people should not moan about Egypt because it was not like war-ravaged Iraq or Syria, his remark gave birth to a joke: New Egyptian passports should read "The Country not like Iraq or Syria."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 18, 2015

A long, painful look into the whirlpools of World War II

The 1985 Holocaust documentary "Shoah," directed by Claude Lanzmann — screening until Mar. 6 at Tokyo's Theatre Image Forum — feels more like evidence than cinema. At 9½ hours, and filled with straight-to-the-camera testimony from concentration camp survivors, Nazi guards and many other eyewitnesses,...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 17, 2015

Monetary easing won't be easy for China

Today's China finds itself much where Asia did in 1997 — dependent on exports and excessive borrowing, and at the mercy of markets that have no trouble seeing through government spin.
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.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 16, 2015

Your toothpaste is destroying Asia's rainforests

You probably had some palm oil today, which is found in roughly half of the products sold in modern supermarkets. It is the cause of one of the world's biggest environmental catastrophes, the decimation of Southeast Asia's rainforests.
EDITORIALS
Feb 16, 2015

Minsk II: a pause, not peace

The second Minsk accord in six months, which was 16 hours in the making, may freeze the conflict in eastern Ukraine between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russia rebels, but it appears to lock in Russia's ability to meddle in Ukrainian affairs.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Feb 16, 2015

Putin, fearing Russia's subservience to China, casts wider net over Asia

Boxed in by the U.S. and its allies, faced with an uneasy relationship with China and needing new friends and income, Russia is popping up everywhere in Asia.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Feb 15, 2015

Liberals work to lure Elizabeth Warren into White House race

The scene in the New Hampshire office is one common to any nascent U.S. presidential campaign in the state that holds the country's first primary contest: Young staffers peck away at laptops and unpack boxes of signs with their candidate's name.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 14, 2015

Love thy neighbor? Chinese nationals who call Japan home

Like tempestuous lovers, China and Japan have sparred for centuries but have remained interdependent in each other's economy, politics, culture, language and arts.

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo