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Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 16, 2014

Power play: the debate over renewable energy

On Aug. 26, 2011, the same day that Prime Minister Naoto Kan resigned after widespread criticism of his handling of the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant that followed the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, the Diet passed legislation that created a new feed-in...
COMMENTARY / World / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 16, 2014

China's million-migrant march into Africa

The scramble for Africa is intensifying. In early August, U.S. President Barack Obama hosted 50 African leaders, signaling renewed interest in the continent.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Aug 16, 2014

Obic Seagulls lose Sister Cities International Bowl in Alabama

The Obic Seagulls, Japan's top football team, came up short against the APDFL Blazers on Thursday, losing 16-12 in the Sister Cities International Bowl in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 16, 2014

Estranged wife of Oklahoma oil baron Hamm could get billions in divorce case

More than $17 billion of Oklahoma oilman Harold Hamm's fortune could be subject to division with his estranged wife, according to an economic analysis presented in their divorce trial, defining the stakes in one of the biggest battles ever over a marital estate.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Aug 15, 2014

Wakayama negotiating to bring back Pavlicevic

After a complete organizational shake-up that included a planned switch to a new coach, veteran bench boss Zeljko Pavlicevic is in discussions with Wakayama Trians ownership to return to lead the team for the 2014-15 season, The Japan Times has learned.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 15, 2014

Obama needs to choose his words more carefully

Although U.S. President Barack Obama has made it clear that he does not intend to take the U.S. more deeply into the Mideast again, the U.S. is allied with and presumably counseling Ukrainian government forces that seem set on vanquishing what remains of the pro-Russian separatists near the Russian border.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 15, 2014

What should the U.S. do about Islamic State?

The U.S. lost the Iraq War years ago. The sooner it accepts that there is nothing to be saved there and moves on, the better off it'll be. That includes refraining from attacking the Islamic State.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 15, 2014

The bill for Putin's policy will be high

Virtually every retaliatory move against the West proposed by Vladimir Putin as a result of the Ukraine crisis has backfired on Russia and left it in a far weaker financial position.
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Aug 14, 2014

Shiga brings in veteran Parmer to boost bid for title

Versatile forward Jeff Parmer has been one of the bj-league's most consistent winners during his four seasons in the fledgling circuit.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 14, 2014

Danger from loose nukes in volatile countries

The inherent danger in possessing nuclear assets becomes far more acute in a combat zone, such as today's Middle East, where nuclear materials and weapons are at risk of theft, and reactors can become bombing targets.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 14, 2014

Build strong Japan-India ties without taking aim at China

In Tokyo and New Delhi, there are people seeking to elevate Indo-Japanese relations to the status of a de facto alliance and to pursue a strategy of encircling China.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Aug 13, 2014

Past victimhood blinds Japan to present-day racial discrimination

Until Japan gets over itself and accepts that racialization processes are intrinsic to every society, it will never resolve its constant and unwarranted exceptionalism.
BUSINESS
Aug 13, 2014

Sumitomo joins Goldman in expecting the aluminum market to swing into a deficit

The global aluminum market will swing into a deficit this year for the first time since 2006 as cuts in output deepen and demand from automakers grows, according to trading house Sumitomo Corp.
WORLD
Aug 13, 2014

Israel's Gaza blockade to be challenged

Pro-Palestinian activists said Tuesday they would send ships this year to the Gaza Strip to try to breach Israel's naval blockade, repeating an action that four years ago ended with Israeli marines boarding a vessel and killing nine Turks.
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 13, 2014

Japan's economy suffers biggest decline since 2011 as tax hike bites

The Japanese economy suffered its biggest contraction since the March 2011 earthquake in the second quarter of this year as the hike in sales tax to 8 from 5 percent took a heavy toll on household spending, stoking fears that any rebound may be too modest to sustain a solid recovery.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 13, 2014

WHO hopes for more Ebola drug doses, vaccine progress by end of year

World Health Organization experts fighting the world's worst outbreak of Ebola hope for improved supplies of experimental treatments and progress with a vaccine by the end of the year.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2014

Obama should follow Nixon's lead and do the right thing

Richard M. Nixon's White House efforts to cover up the Watergate scandal in 1972 look positively penny-ante compared to President Barack Obama's coverup of government-approved torture 40 years later.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2014

Who will give refuge to the last pagans of Iraq?

Already the Islamic State has practically eliminated the Shiite Muslim and Christian populations from the lands it controls. The worst of the persecution has been aimed at the Yezidi, a religious group whose pagan roots go back at least to the late Bronze Age.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2014

How vodka limits hastened the USSR's demise

When the Soviet Union finally disintegrated at the end of 1991, Boris Yeltsin, the new Russian leader, decided not to repeat Mikhail Gorbachev's error of restricting access to vodka. Some say it was Gorbachev's sober way of life — and his attempt to impose it on his countrymen — that makes Russians dislike him in retrospect.
BUSINESS / NOTEBOOK
Aug 12, 2014

International woodblock art; an airport space for kids; heating up the hoodie

exhibitions
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 12, 2014

U.N. names panel to investigate alleged war crimes in Gaza

The United Nations on Monday named three experts to an international commission of inquiry into possible human rights violations and war crimes committed by both sides during Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 12, 2014

China has more than 150 economic fugitives in U.S., daily says

More than 150 people suspected of economic crimes from China remain at large in the U.S., the China Daily said Monday, as officials pledge to step up efforts to hunt down those who take their ill-gotten gains abroad.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 11, 2014

Never trust a realist when it comes to politicians

If you're looking for one big reason the U.S. seems to be on the wrong track, try the marginalization of idealism that coincided with the collapse of the peace movement and the American Left at the end of the Vietnam War in the early 1970s.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
Aug 11, 2014

Japan tallies weak yen as prices rise without export gain

It was called "endaka" — a Japanese term for currency strength that sapped the economy — and reversing it was supposed to help end deflation and stoke growth.
BUSINESS
Aug 11, 2014

Microsoft's emerging markets problem: Few want to pay for genuine product

On a trip to Beijing a decade ago, Bill Gates was asked by a senior government official how much money Microsoft Corp. made in China. The official asked the interpreter to double check Gates' reply as he couldn't believe the figure was so low.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 9, 2014

Okinawa: pocket of resistance

The battle over Henoko Bay looks set to challenge the power of the archipelago's protest movement.
EDITORIALS
Aug 9, 2014

The waterworks are wearing out

The cost of maintaining and repairing Japan's water infrastructure is expected to be at least ¥1 trillion annually after 2020 as the 40-year life span on most pipes andd equipment runs out about the same time.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 9, 2014

A Russian bureaucrat rebels on Facebook

President Vladimir Putin's standoff with the West, which has turned Russia into a corporate state in defensive mode, makes the rebellion of a lone bureaucrat in the Economics Ministry all the more impressive.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami