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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jul 29, 2013

Tokyo: Now that Abe's coalition has a majority in both Diet chambers, what should he do?

I would like to buy a house in the future, so while housing loan taxes are low now, I would like to see Mr. Abe help those looking to buy houses by lowering these taxes even further. Also, I think that until the economy improves, the consumption tax should not be increased — for now.
JAPAN
Jul 25, 2013

Hayao Miyazaki: Leave Constitution alone

Anime master Hayao Miyazaki blasted the government's push to revise the Constitution, saying that politicians without any understanding of history "shouldn't be messing" with the foundation of the country.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jul 14, 2013

Imminent birth puts spotlight on monarch

Aging monarchs in the Netherlands and Belgium stepped down this year to make room for the next generation of Europe's crowned heads. But in Britain, the impending birth of a royal baby will have heirs stacking up like planes at London's super-clogged Heathrow Airport.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jul 6, 2013

Yoko Narahashi: From Hollywood to Hirohito

From "Empire of the Sun" to "The Last Samurai," and from "Memoirs of a Geisha" to "Babel" — when Hollywood film directors have turned their cameras to the Land of the Rising Sun, there is one person they have insisted on having by their side: Yoko Narahashi, a casting agent, producer, sometimes director...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Jul 6, 2013

'Water of life' helps to keep spirits up

Back in 1980, when I first settled in Kurohime, up in the hills of northern Nagano Prefecture, I often had to go to Tokyo to meet editors. They were good times, as those office-wallahs would take pity on young struggling authors and use them as an excuse to visit bars.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 30, 2013

Delving into Ethiopia's ancient past and present

I'm edging my way through a long tunnel in pitch darkness, feeling for the roof so I don't hit my head, waving my trusty flashlight around to scan the walls and sandy floor and check for any unwelcome wildlife. I feel like Indiana Jones but a lot less brave.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jun 16, 2013

Family-crest master fears he's one of a dying breed

Dressed in a black kimono and wearing a pair of eye-catching black, triple-framed spectacles, Shoryu Hatoba straightens his back as he sits on the tatami floor of his quaint studio in Ueno, central Tokyo, holding a pair of bamboo compasses fitted with a brush dipped in ink in place of a pencil.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 2, 2013

Severe sports training methods became taibatsu in time

The martial arts were the inspiration for the famous baseball team at the First Higher School of Tokyo, a late 19th century powerhouse that helped make yakyu, as baseball came to be known, the national sport of Japan.
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Jun 2, 2013

Sex gaffes and the voluble Osaka shyster

If the Japan Restoration Party — headed by Toru Hashimoto, the mayor of Osaka, and former Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara — needs a new political slogan, the proverb Kuchi ga wazawai no moto (The mouth is the source of great trouble) would do nicely.
JAPAN
May 25, 2013

Ex-sex slaves won't meet Hashimoto

Two South Korean former 'comfort women' cancel their planned meeting with Nippon Ishin no Kai coleader Toru Hashimoto, saying via a representative that they don't want to be his political pawns.
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2013

Why China's developmental state says no to liberalism

Modern history is the story of how liberal democracy, originating in Britain and America, spread around the world. This may sound like an absurd fantasy. In actuality, this Whiggish narrative of progress underpins most newspaper editorials, political commentary and speeches in the West, and frames larger...
EDITORIALS
May 15, 2013

Nationalism will undermine Japan

The prime minister's remarks about Yasukuni Shrine as well as his attitude toward the nation's past 'aggression' threaten to undermine international trust in Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE
May 12, 2013

'Beauty' as beheld in Japan through the ages

In July 2006, Shinzo Abe published a book titled 'Utsukushii Kuni e' ('Toward a Beautiful Country'), but what does he mean by 'beautiful country'?
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 1, 2013

Please, no more Yasukuni visits

For the White House to welcome Japan to the TPP talks and to tell China to back off on the Senkakus, while Japan's top leaders visit Yasukuni Shrine, is ridiculous.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 28, 2013

Abe-history: Premier again seems set on stoking controversy and ire

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is no stranger to historical controversy. Back in 2001 he pressured national broadcaster NHK to revise a documentary about the judgment of an international people's tribunal regarding the war responsibility of Emperor Hirohito (posthumously known as Emperor Showa). And in 2007...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 21, 2013

Get set for boating in Naha and Itoman

May and June are the months in which to visit Okinawa if your aim is to witness the spectacle of fiercely contested races between crews paddling dragon boats or the Ryukyu Islands' small traditional fishing boats called sabani.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 13, 2013

Here's what should be done when North Korea goes south

Predictions of North Korean famine come every year, but indeed the last five to 10 years have seen modest, but undeniable, economic improvement.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 25, 2013

Did success have a prayer in Iraq?

It is possible the invasion of Iraq was a mistake that might have still been executed much more effectively for a much better outcome after 10 years.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 20, 2013

Debunking five myths about Iraq

Today a new set of beliefs defines many discussions about the war in Iraq and its aftermath. Are they just as wrong as the 2003 prewar rhetoric
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 14, 2013

Danger is mounting in Asia

The cliche that the 21st century will be a Pacific century may still prove out. But the Asia-Pacific of late has become a zone of frightening confrontation.
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.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 3, 2013

Constitutional revision may bring less freedom

Article 18 of Japan's Constitution states, "No person shall be held in bondage of any kind. Involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime, is prohibited."
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 22, 2013

The blunt, blue-blooded Aso is back

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may be the face of the new government led by Liberal Democratic Party, but Finance Minister Taro Aso is also a force in the LDP to be reckoned with.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2013

Moscow's not-so-friendly environmental quirks

Moscow, they say, "wasn't built at one go" — in contrast to St. Petersburg, which emerged laid out, as if by magic, in strict conformity to Peter the Great's plan — and it has been growing chaotically for more than 800 years on seven gently sloping hills surrounding the river of the same name.
LIFE / Travel
Jan 13, 2013

Sapporo's wonders of winter

It seemed to me on a recent winter's visit to Sapporo that everyone was a performer: from the flamboyant gestures and bullhorn announcements of the tour guides, to the showy dismembering of crabs by vendors, to the owners of the cubbyhole restaurants in Ramen Yokocho, the alley of mostly one-man operations...

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