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COMMENTARY / World
May 8, 2013

U.S. burnishing energy card

As the top natural gas producer outpacing even Russia, the U.S. has an energy card to play. It can decide how much to export, at what price, and to which countries.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / FOCUS
May 8, 2013

Britain's ports put wind in investors' sails

Methil port north of Edinburgh, once the focus of Scotland's coal exports, is set to tap a greener kind of energy as Samsung Heavy Industry Co. constructs the world's biggest wind turbine in the town's faded harbor.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 25, 2013

The first lady of Japanese jazz comes home

For Japanese jazz musicians these days, going to the United States to further mastery of the genre is a much-pursued rite of passage. This route has enabled a number of acts to gain international recognition and success.
EDITORIALS
Apr 24, 2013

Worrying defense spending trends

The 0.5 percent decline in military spending worldwide in 2012 was the first real drop since 1998. But a closer look at the numbers leaves little reason to cheer.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 22, 2013

Markets flunk challenge of poor people's health

A lack of balance exists between the health needs of really poor people in the world and the market for helping the rich and super-rich lead a fashionable lifestyle.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 16, 2013

No resting on techie laurels

Only a few years ago, it was forecast that Japan's best growth strategy would be to develop environment-related products. That forecast was off the mark.
Japan Times
JAPAN / FORUM ON AFRICA-JAPAN RELATIONS
Mar 30, 2013

The evolution of Japan-Africa relations through TICAD

The fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V) will be held in Yokohama from June 1 to 3 to discuss various issues regarding the continent with political and business leaders from around the world.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Mar 27, 2013

Track legends moved by interaction with athletes in Tohoku

Nine-time Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis came to Japan hoping to boost the spirits of young athletes from the Tohoku region, but the track legend says it was he who came away inspired in the end.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Mar 23, 2013

Photography buff behind Japan Camera Hunter thrives in Tokyo, the capital of cameras

Bellamy Hunt's name is part of his business: Japan Camera Hunter, a one-man enterprise supporting film photo buffs around Asia and the world. His work mainly involves hunting down vintage cameras, whether an elusive early model Nikon or a classic Leica.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 19, 2013

Top chefs explore international accents to sushi

On March 6, in a banquet room of the Hotel The Manhattan in Chiba a group of television camera crews surrounded American chef Jeff Ramsey as he carefully spooned a layer of black rice onto a slice of omelet.
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 16, 2013

The Facebook executive on a self-help mission

Sheryl Sandberg does not do things by half-measures. So when the chief operating officer of Facebook and the most high-profile businesswoman in the world publishes a book she does not sit back, give a few interviews and let the glowing reviews flow in. No, Sandberg tries to start a fully fledged social...
BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 16, 2013

Browser makers consider limits to tracking users

It is often hard to tell which is the Web's priority: helping you learn about the world or helping the world — and especially advertisers — learn about you.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 9, 2013

Thom Yorke: 'If I can't enjoy this now, when do I start?'

You don't necessarily associate Thom Yorke with fun. Radiohead's frontman and principal songwriter has tended to have different kinds of adjectives attached to him in his two decades in the music pages: 'intense,' 'tortured' and 'angst-ridden,' or 'impassioned,' 'essential' and 'important.'
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Mar 5, 2013

Child's quibble with U.S. 'poverty superpower' propaganda unravels a sobering story about insular Japan

Last November, a reader in Hokkaido named Stephanie sent me an article read in Japan's elementary schools. Featured in a sixth-grader magazine called Chagurin (from "child agricultural green") dated December 2012, it was titled "Children of America, the Poverty Superpower" (hinkon taikoku Amerika no...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 3, 2013

The days may be numbered for English as a universal second language

How long will English last as a major world language? The answer must be: a very long time.
Japan Times
WORLD
Feb 23, 2013

As Africa rises, Europe loses grip on Catholic power base

The muted light of an African sunset filters into the high, pointed roof of Christ The King church in Accra, a wide, understated building just metres away from the seat of government in Ghana's capital city.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2013

China's greater water wall

The Chinese government's recent decision to build an array of new dams on rivers flowing to other nations is set to roil inter-riparian relations in Asia.
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 / Japan
Feb 13, 2013

Japan as a normal country

The U.S. should reject the notion of preparing for war in the Pacific, and let Japan and its neighbors cooperate to counter Beijing's geopolitical ambitions.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 13, 2013

Faith in renewed growth is an ill-advised policy

Americans are treating the present economy as if the bubbly growth from 2000 to 2007 will return. It may simply be time to learn how to live with less.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 4, 2013

Why Obama went with Hagel to run Defense

A doctrine of Barack Obama holds that war is sometimes necessary and that war at some level is an expression of human folly. Chuck Hagel would agree.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 3, 2013

Celebrity bloggers not required to disclose paid endorsements

In December several celebrities were forced to apologize publicly for stating on their personal blogs that they had "won" items on so-called penny auction websites when, in fact, they hadn't.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 17, 2013

Patti Smith hopes 2013 is about rebuilding

By the time you read this, Patti Smith will have been in Japan for nearly a week. The iconic poet, author, painter and "Godmother of Punk" hasn't yet played a gig with her band; that will come later. First, Smith is reconnecting with a country with which her affinity runs deep.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2013

Sign of the Financial Times: Will it sell independence?

Too many years ago, this young reporter was about to move from one of Britain's biggest newspaper groups to a paper with a daily sale of fewer than 200,000 copies. A hard-bitten veteran, who had spent years reporting for the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph pleaded with me over farewell drinks not...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 23, 2012

Abe is a hawk, the public merely conservative

Commenting acidly on November's U.S. presidential election, American columnist George Will said all it showed was "whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney has the smaller gigantic number of Americans not wanting him to be president." Substitute the names of Prime Minister-elect Shinzo Abe and outgoing Prime...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 21, 2012

Stately pleasure dome rises in China's Chengdu

by Sebastien Blanc CHENGDU CHN AFP
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 13, 2012

Should we strive to live to age 1,000?

On which problems should we focus research in medicine and the biological sciences? There is a strong argument for tackling the diseases that kill the most people — diseases like malaria, measles and diarrhea, which kill millions in developing countries, but very few in the developed world.

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan