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COMMENTARY / World
Feb 25, 2013

China's Gwadar plunge could constrain India

Chinese development of Pakistan's Gwadar port and other facilities around India into viable strategic outposts would limit India's options significantly.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Feb 24, 2013

A compelling entry point for discovering Japanese poets from the postwar era

101 MODERN JAPANESE POEMS, compiled by Makoto Ooka, translated by Paul McCarthy, edited by Janine Beichman. Thames River Press, 2012, 144 pp., $45.00 (hardcover)
Reader Mail
Feb 24, 2013

Common sense toward China

With regard to Hisahiko Okazaki's Feb. 20 commentary titled "Japan's step toward normalcy," I'd like to add my two pence worth.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Feb 23, 2013

American teacher's spin on Japan's racism riles Net nationalists

Japan's informal army of young, hyper-nationalist Web users puts U.S. citizen Miki Dezaki in its cross hairs for uploading a video titled 'Racism in Japan' on YouTube.
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2013

Metro government's Senkaku donations gathering dust

The ¥1.48 billion that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government collected in donations to buy and maintain the Senkakus is just lying idle, waiting to be used, after the central government nipped in to snag the disputed islets in September.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 21, 2013

From ADB to BOJ: a 'twofer' for Abe?

As President Barack Obama struggles to get his Defense and Treasury choices in place, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has his own personnel challenges.
Reader Mail
Feb 21, 2013

Cut the irrelevant gender data

Feminists of all stripes are having a field day with the Minami Minegishi scandal, but the Feb. 17 editorial, "AKB48 and sexual politics," is the second Japan Times editorial to cite irrelevant data in the course of analyzing the issue.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2013

The Chinese people have an alternative dream

Last month's controversy at China's Southern Weekly appeared to be about censorship. At a deeper level, it was about alternative national dreams.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2013

Psychology is to blame for weak U.S. growth

U.S. job creation is weak because, since 2008-2009, Americans have gone from being an expansive, risk-taking society to a skittish, risk-averse one.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2013

An uphill battle to reduce U.S. nuclear arsenal

President Barack Obama will have a harder time getting some Senate Republicans to agree to new reductions in nuclear arsenals than he will Moscow.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 18, 2013

The 'Afraid of China Club' beckons, though free farm trade is still a farce

Given the regional paranoia concerning China's regional ambitions, the Trans-Pacific Partnership could realistically be called the 'Afraid of China Club.'
Japan Times
JAPAN / INTERPRETATION & TRANSLATION
Feb 18, 2013

Making a living using foreign language skills

What would it be like to make a living using foreign language skills as a freelance professional? Missa Takahashi, an interpreter and translator of English, French and Italian, shares how she established her career, expanded her work and deepened her understanding of language and culture.
EDITORIALS
Feb 17, 2013

AKB48 and sexual politics

The tearful video from a 20-year-old female pop group member who 'broke the rules' was a disturbing reminder of Japan's troubling gender issues.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 17, 2013

Hiding from strangers in the global village

In his 1993 novel "Hanauzumi," Junichi Watanabe pictures a prosperous farming village in Saitama. The year is 1868. The Meiji Restoration has just occurred. The shogun has been overthrown. The teenage Emperor Meiji has been conveyed from the ancient imperial capital of Kyoto and installed in Tokyo. Great...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 16, 2013

Mr. Obama, did you or did you not kill Anwar al-Awlaki?

The big problem with U.S. drone policy is that it lets the government kill its citizens in secret and then refuse to acknowledge later that it has done so.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 15, 2013

Party picks up in Chinatown this weekend

While it seems politics is all that comes to mind when talking about China these days, the current New Year's holiday shows what a remarkable breadth of culture the country has.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 14, 2013

Parties come together to lift ban on Net election campaigning

All 11 major parties in the Diet agree in principle to lift the ban on Internet-based election campaigning in time for this summer's Upper House election.
Japan Times
WORLD
Feb 13, 2013

Pope leaves legacy of impartial governance

Yes, Pope Benedict XVI came into the Vatican with the reputation as God's Rottweiler. Yes, he was an archconservative who seemed to care a lot more about liturgical orthodoxy than the plight of the church's progressives. Yes, he never escaped the shadow of the superstar and sanctified pope who preceded...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 10, 2013

Gold rush: Japan Inc. flocks to Myanmar

Political reforms are happening because the military/political leaders wanted to end their nation's isolation and benefit from having a more prosperous economy.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2013

Wiped out city waits for Tokyo to wake up

It has been almost two years since much of Tohoku's coastline was wiped out by tsunami on March 11. Gone are many of the destroyed buildings and vehicles that served as reminders of the horror and tragedy caused by the monster earthquake in the Pacific.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 7, 2013

Abe presses ahead on collective self-defense

Japanese corporate executives doing business with China as well as diplomats stationed in Japan and neighboring countries are probably breathing a sigh of relief now that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has dialed down his hawkish stance from the campaign trail in December and has instead focused on stimulus...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2013

Turning China into an enemy

The rise in tensions over disputed claims to islands and rocky outcrops in the South China Sea has the potential to harm the interests of Australia.
EDITORIALS
Feb 7, 2013

Delay in electoral reform

Talks agreed by the Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito and the Democratic Party of Japan on election system reform for the Diet are going nowhere.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 7, 2013

Infectious artwork that spreads ideas

"On Mosquitoes Human and Other Animals" is the work of artist Beatriz Inglessis in collaboration with three other people: philosopher Suzanne McCullagh, education specialist Renee Jackson and gallery curator Shai Ohayon. The latest show at The Container gallery in Nakameguro, it's the result of months...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 5, 2013

To regain its vitality, U.S. must lose its paranoia

A Marine officer cannot square the pettiness in the discourse of U.S. elders with the nobility of the men and women he served with in Afghanistan.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 5, 2013

No winners in a conflict over the Senkaku Islands

The U.S. and Japan, despite domestic uncertainties, had better consider how they'll react if the Senkaku Islands start a military conflict with China.
EDITORIALS
Feb 4, 2013

The DPJ's obligation

Members of the No. 1 opposition party, DPJ, have a duty to check the moves of the Abe administration with regard to economic and and defense policies.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 4, 2013

Hard part of the intervention starts

Now that the Islamic militants have scattered across the vast deserts of northern Mali, they will launch a different kind of war — a 'war of the shadows.'

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