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ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Dec 27, 2009

COP15 farce: There's always more time, till there isn't

Post-conference analysis of the Copenhagen COP15 has ranged from despair and disgust to guarded optimism that 2010 will bring a new and better agreement.
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 27, 2009

Thank God the year's over

History has seen worse years than 2009. All the same, this Year of the Ox has been more than most of us born after World War II in the relatively privileged regions of the Earth were conditioned to cope with.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Dec 27, 2009

The year's top news in brief, final `Hidden Talent' show, and Shinichi Hoshi's short stories

SMAP's leader, Masahiro Nakai, is not just this year's co-emcee of NHK's New Year's Eve song contest again. He's hosting specials throughout this week and next all over the TV dial.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Dec 27, 2009

The year's top news in brief, final `Hidden Talent' show, and Shinichi Hoshi's short stories

SMAP's leader, Masahiro Nakai, is not just this year's co-emcee of NHK's New Year's Eve song contest again. He's hosting specials throughout this week and next all over the TV dial.
EDITORIALS
Dec 26, 2009

Mr. Ozawa is out of line

Ripples from the controversy over Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping's exceptional audience with the Emperor on Dec. 15 have not died down. Statements on the relationship between the Cabinet and the Emperor made by Democratic Party of Japan Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa raise serious concerns.
EDITORIALS
Dec 26, 2009

Not a benchmark to celebrate

The 100th day of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's administration was marred by disgrace. On Thursday, two former secretaries to Mr. Hatoyama were indicted for falsifying political funds reports. The case is not linked to corruption, but it casts serious doubt over the transparency of the Hatoyama office's...
BUSINESS
Dec 26, 2009

Budget big but little in remedial terms

The all-time high fiscal 2010 budget draft approved Friday casts considerable doubt on whether the country can sustain its finances or if through such spending it can buy its way out of the economic slump, experts warn.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2009

Will Russia save the West?

MOSCOW — Rapid changes in the global economy and international politics are raising, once more, an eternal issue in Russia: the country's relations with Europe, and with the Euro-Atlantic region as a whole. Of course, Russia partly belongs to this region. Yet it cannot and does not want to join the...
Japan Times
CULTURE
Dec 25, 2009

Legendary, dirty samurai gets makeover

Singer and actor Masaharu Fukuyama hit the nail on the head when he said that Sakamoto Ryoma is the kind of person onto whom anyone can project themselves.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Dec 24, 2009

Web designer Peter Brune

Peter Brune, 45, is a Web designer and photographer who has been a Japanese resident for 10 years. Born and raised in East Berlin, Brune was a world traveler even before he set foot outside the walls of his home: Absorbed in books and glued to the television and radio, he was constantly crossing borders...
COMMENTARY
Dec 22, 2009

Travails of a 'young war criminal'

LONDON — Alan Watkins is my favorite British journalist. Well into his 70s now, each week he still produces an elegant and knowing column, usually about British politics. And with a casual understatement that you might easily mistake for irony, he has for the past six years regularly referred to former...
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Dec 21, 2009

Hatoyama girds to review security alliance with U.S.

Only people in their late 60s and older remember the turmoil that raged in Japan in 1960 between the proponents and opponents of ratifying the revised security treaty with the United States. As these generations have aged, the security alliance between the two nations itself has grown somewhat antiquated...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 21, 2009

Renewed dialogue welcome, but talks alone won't win peace

LONDON — Speculation has been building up on the Subcontinent that dialogue between India and Pakistan is about to restart. Last month Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir that if Pakistan showed "sincerity and good faith," India "will not be found...
BUSINESS / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Dec 21, 2009

Press club system a domestic dilemma begging for change

In January, the European Business Council in Japan will launch a new magazine called eurobiz japan. This magazine will address topics of special interest to European firms here, including the press club system — an issue that continues to rankle foreign business circles.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 20, 2009

Stunning book speaks volumes about the ravages visited on Tibet

Ten years ago, near the end of 1999, the Chinese author Wang Lixiong received a package from a young woman of Tibetan origin named Tsering Woeser. It contained several hundred black-and-white negatives.
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2009

Gridlock threatens to doom COP15

COPENHAGEN — U.N. negotiators at the COP15 conference worked through the night Tuesday, increasingly desperate to reach agreement before more than 120 world leaders gather Thursday night and Friday and following an official warning that the stalemated negotiations could doom the conference.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 16, 2009

What does Japan want from Washington?

OSAKA — Three months after the Democratic Party of Japan's landslide general election victory, the new administration's foreign and security policy appears to be increasingly at odds with that of the United States. Indeed, there is growing concern on both sides of the Pacific that Prime Minister Yukio...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Dec 15, 2009

Every husband a potential 'abuser': some responses

A selection of readers' responses to Colin P. A. Jones' Nov. 24 Zeit Gist article on child custody and abuse allegations:
EDITORIALS
Dec 15, 2009

Realistic view on war and peace

In the October announcement of its decision to bestow the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on U.S. President Barack Obama, the Norwegian Nobel Committee attached special importance to his "vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons." The committee also praised the U.S. president by stating: "Only very...
Reader Mail
Dec 13, 2009

Swiss vote was not anti-Muslim

In his Dec. 6 article, "The Swiss and Iranian agents of provocation," Gwynne Dyer commits at least two mistakes — sadly so for one claiming to be an expert in international politics: (1) He compares the referendum in which the Swiss people took responsibility to voice their opinion with the actions...
Reader Mail
Dec 13, 2009

Detention as a form of intimidation

The Dec. 6 editorial, "Freedom of expression takes a hit," is on the mark in two respects. We should worry about what has become of freedom of expression when the Supreme Court upholds a a previous court ruling against a Buddhist monk for "trespassing" because he distributed Japanese Communist Party...
JAPAN
Dec 12, 2009

Emperor will meet China's Xi Tuesday

Emperor Akihito will meet Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping on Tuesday, waiving a customary rule that he be notified a month in advance of such visits, the Imperial Household Agency said.
JAPAN
Dec 12, 2009

Japan under fire for laying low in Copenhagen

COPENHAGEN — Japan needs to step up and take a more prominent and visible leadership role at the U.N. climate talks or the conference could end in failure, Japanese and foreign nongovernmental organizations said Thursday.
Reader Mail
Dec 10, 2009

DPJ needs an investment strategy

I have two concerns about the Nov. 30 editorial "Shore up basic science": First, it may be too harsh to say the decisions of the waste-cutting panel of the Government Revitalization Unit (GRU) are "shortsighted." Despite many criticisms of their crude arguments, the GRU and its panel have the epoch-making...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Dec 9, 2009

No truth to Harrington-Thomas trade talk

NEW YORK — The mind boggles and the mouse googles:

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