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JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Apr 25, 2014

Abe sought to boast better U.S. ties

For Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Thursday's summit with U.S. President Barack Obama should have been a big moment to trumpet the strength of the Japan-U.S. alliance, which he claimed has greatly improved after relations soured under the Democratic Party of Japan-led administration that preceded his.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 25, 2014

Barack Obama: America's adolescent president

U.S. President Barack Obama talks like an arrested-development adolescent, using teenage tropes such as invoking straw men, truncating arguments and showing righteous indignation when confronted with disagreement.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 22, 2014

No end in sight to Thailand's political unrest

The crux of the now six-month-long Thai campaign of protests is not just the widespread corruption supposedly committed by the Yingluck government. It's also the seemingly intimate ties between the king's heir apparent and Thaksin Shinawatra, which worry the conservative royalists of the 'network monarchy.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 22, 2014

Simi Lab delivers a mixed message on 'Page 2: Mind Over Matter'

Few genres are as freighted with the politics of authenticity as hip-hop. Just last month, the New Yorker kicked off a fresh round of controversy when it ran a profile of Lord Jamar, a cantankerous middle-aged rapper who rails against what he sees as the softening — and whitening — of modern hip-hop....
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 21, 2014

Obama's state visit comes at crucial time

With defense and trade issues still to be resolved, Thursday's U.S.-Japan summit is a high-stakes game for both sides.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 21, 2014

Is Japan a 'normal' country simply trying to stick out?

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's apparent aspirations for Japan to become a 'normal' country again are undermined by the government's attempts to impose conformity and limit freedoms.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 20, 2014

India's status quo is riskier

The political party that proudly led India into independence has been reduced to a self-serving coterie of sycophants, courtiers and court jesters. Is the status quo more risky than the 'Modi alternative' in the current election?
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 20, 2014

Why not teach students what's going on now?

Who do textbook publishers think it's smart to start a fourth-grade history textbook with prehistoric humans who lived 10,000 years ago? Why not begin by teaching students what's going on now?
JAPAN / History
Apr 19, 2014

Taking a maiden stab at expansionism in Taiwan

Taiwan is Japan's forgotten colony.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 19, 2014

Team Abe's alternate-reality Kool-Aid

Japan's relations with China and South Korea are in tatters, there has been no progress on dealing with North Korea's nuclear weapons program, strains with Washington persist, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks are at an impasse, whaling got harpooned and hopes for a deal with Russia on the northern...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 19, 2014

U.S. further delays making final decision on Keystone XL pipeline

The Obama administration further delayed its decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project Friday, with no conclusion now likely until after midterm elections are held in November.
JAPAN
Apr 16, 2014

'Japanese Only' sign sparks bigotry debate

For nearly two decades, Shunji Usui has been a fixture at Urawa Red Diamonds matches at Saitama Stadium in the suburbs of Tokyo, a face in the crowd among the most avid — and sometimes rabid — fans of any Japanese soccer club.
Reader Mail
Apr 16, 2014

Confused by energy conclusion

I am slightly confused over Jeff Kingston's April 6 Counterpoint article, "Lessons of Fukushima: Reactor restarts are unwise". It focuses on the findings of an online report by Kingston's colleague Kyle Cleveland, titled "Mobilizing Nuclear Bias: The Fukushima Nuclear Crisis and the Politics of Uncertainty."...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 15, 2014

Immigration reform will benefit both U.S. and Asia

If there was bipartisan support in Washington to focus first on immigrant integration — rather than immigrant admissions — it would at least address the brain waste of America's underutilized college-educated immigrants.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Apr 14, 2014

Obama picks new health care chief

President Barack Obama's new nominee for health secretary drew some early political fire from Republicans on Sunday in what could foreshadow a stormy election-year confirmation debate in the U.S. Senate over the future of the law known derisively as "Obamacare."
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Apr 10, 2014

In Iran, many of 1979 U.S. hostage takers mellow, now favor evolution to revolution

Three decades after hard-line students occupied the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took diplomats hostage for 444 days, many of the now middle-aged revolutionaries are among the most vocal critics of Iran's conservative establishment, officials and analysts said.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 10, 2014

Frustrated Russia pushes back against the U.S.

From the Russian perspective, the toppling of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was was the latest and most outrageous step in a systematic U.S.-led policy of incursions into the heart of Russia's historic core security zone.
EDITORIALS
Apr 10, 2014

Reality check for Mideast and U.S.

Israelis and Palestinians had better assess their dwindling options after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's latest Mideast peace efforts hit a wall, and acknowledge that a negotiated settlement is much better than their unilateral options.
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Apr 9, 2014

Putin lacks springboard for east Ukraine offensive

It took Russian President Vladimir Putin just three weeks to annex Crimea. Figuring out what to do with eastern Ukraine might take him longer.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 8, 2014

Your Party looks to pick new chief after Watanabe's exit

The embattled Your Party is set to name a new leader as early as Friday to replace Yoshimi Watanabe, who Monday expressed his intention to resign as party chief amid a money scandal.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 8, 2014

Oreskaband vocalist iCas talks politics and 10 years in the music game

The first topic that comes up when I sit down with Oreskaband's singer/guitarist Naoko "iCas" Yoshioka isn't music or her band, it's a lunchtime variety show called "Waratte Iitomo!" The finale aired March 31 and she asks me if I saw it, which I hadn't. She insists that I watch it.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 8, 2014

Would independent Scotland have its own spies?

If an independent Scotland does have to develop its own intelligence network, it will lead to an intriguing question in the independence debate: Who will pose the biggest threat to the physical and economic security of the state?
JAPAN
Apr 6, 2014

Bumpy road ahead to Aussie FTA

Australian Trade Minister Andrew Robb said substantive issues remained in trade negotiations with Japan as the two nations rushed to conclude a free trade agreement before their prime ministers meet on Monday.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 6, 2014

Don't let Cold War warriors reboot their dated thinking

The hundred think tanks that bloomed, and the thousands of mediocre academics and pseudo-experts who found easy employment in the universities and the media, feel obliged to make themselves relevant and important again after Russian President Vladimir Putin's land grab. Don't let them reboot the Cold War.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Apr 5, 2014

Pulmonary pest ravages; study of racial hygienics urged; Japan mourns Gen. MacArthur; Takeshita resigns over Recruit scandal

The dreadful pulmonary pest (pneumonic plague) has plunged districts of Omikawa and Moriyama-mura, Chiba, into consternation.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 5, 2014

Evil and the Mask

What would you do if you hated your father — really hated him? Could you bring yourself to kill him? But what if that was exactly what he expected of the kind of person he was hoping you would become — a creature filled with evil thoughts and rage?
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Apr 4, 2014

Vote might tip Afghan tribes into new war

Growing violence in Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar ahead of the presidential election next week highlights a rift between Pashtun tribes that could tip the country back into civil war.
COMMENTARY
Apr 4, 2014

Wary West caught off guard by Putin's wild ways

At this point, the West has no idea what Russia is willing to do to restore its influence, but Russia knows exactly what the West will — and, more important, will not — do. This has created a dangerous asymmetry.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 4, 2014

The New Yorker is bad for cartooning

Writer-cartoonist says The New Yorker magazine prints a lot of awful cartoons, yet uses its reputation in order to elevate terrible work as the profession's platinum standard.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 3, 2014

'Wałesa: Man of Hope'

Poland's legendary filmmaker Andrzej Wajda takes on Lech Wałesa, Poland's man of the people, in this fictional documentary "Wałesa: Man of Hope," and it comes as somewhat of a surprise.

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