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Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Sep 15, 2013

2013: A space conundrum

Long ago, in a dreamier era, space stations were imagined as portals to the heavens. In the 1968 movie "2001: A Space Odyssey," the huge structure twirled in orbit, aesthetically sublime, a relaxing way station for astronauts heading to the moon. It featured a Hilton and a Howard Johnson's.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Sep 15, 2013

Japan must avoid using 2020 Olympics as excuse to put off fiscal rehab

The G-20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, ended Sept. 6 with the conclusion that it is premature to declare that the global economic crisis has ended, despite signs of improvement.
Reader Mail
Sep 11, 2013

America's love of war

Regarding the Sept. 5 commentary by Henry Allen titled "Tragedy of America's 'good and virtuous wars' ": All wars are tragic, perhaps none more so than those fought in the name of civic virtue. The U.S. Navy's new recruiting slogan boasts that it's a global force for good! The American writer historian...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 10, 2013

The changing international mood on migration

Despite persistent and even rising anti-immigrant sentiment in much of the world, promising signs of a more enlightened approach to migration are emerging.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy / 'SUMMER DAVOS' SPECIAL 2013
Sep 10, 2013

Young entrepreneurs go forward in 'New Japan'; deregulation can aid economy

Tokyo is becoming an incubator of venture businesses as many young people — seeing the success of other entrepreneurs, who in turn have created a network of mentors and investors — are taking on the challenge of having their own business, aided by an improving economy buoyed by Prime Minister Shinzo...
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 1, 2013

The Syria questions you were too afraid to ask

The United States is preparing for a possibly imminent series of limited military strikes against Syria, the first direct U.S. intervention in the two-year civil war, in retaliation for President Bashar Assad's suspected use of chemical weapons against civilians.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Aug 31, 2013

Hope blooms eternal for the Simien National Park

In 1967, Ethiopia was the last African country south of the Sahara still without any national parks — an embarrassment for a nation then entertaining ambitions to assume leadership of the continent.
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Aug 31, 2013

Nearly 50 years after epic win, Mills backs Tokyo for 2020

Billy Mills' rise to prominence began nearly 50 years ago. Now, as he looks back on his highly successful career as a distance runner, author, humanitarian and motivational speaker, he reflects on how significant a role the 1964 Tokyo Olympics played in his life.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Aug 26, 2013

Kaizen and the art of human wa maintenance

Kaizen here is organic, ubiquitous and attuned to the physical and psychological needs of human beings. At its best, this 'human-scale kaizen' eliminates or eases many of the mundane uncertainties, annoyances and embarrassments of daily life.
SOCCER / J. League
Aug 23, 2013

Kashima's Shibasaki impresses with professional approach to his craft

Kashima Antlers midfielder Gaku Shibasaki may be only 21, but such is the wise head on his young shoulders that 34-year-old club captain Mitsuo Ogasawara already considers him an "old man."
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2013

Global threat of nuclear deterrence

lmost half a century after the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was signed, the world is still perched precariously on the edge of the nuclear precipice.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 16, 2013

Reformers set sights on Scotland's immense private estates

On bleak Scottish moors and soft, mossy hills, the oldest and grandest theme park in the world rose on Aug. 12. The vast and sprawling sporting estates that possess most of Scotland's surface thrummed with the frantically beating wings of grouse and echo to the gunshot, bravo and jolly well done. The...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 15, 2013

Dōmo arigatō, giant robotto

My name is Matt, and I have a problem: I'm a grown man who thinks way too much about giant robots.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 27, 2013

Exclusive: Red Hat's lethal Okinawa smokescreen

In July 1969, a leak of chemical weapons on Okinawa sickened more than 20 U.S. soldiers and laid bare one of the Pentagon's biggest Cold War secrets: the storage of toxic munitions outside of continental United States.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 27, 2013

China betting on overland energy-supply lines

China's strategy to diversify supply routes for its rapidly rising energy imports has taken a major step forward as natural gas flows through a Myanmar pipeline.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 19, 2013

'Abenomics' needs more Thatcher: Marubeni chief

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should adopt policies similar to those used by former U.K. leader Margaret Thatcher to bring the world's third-largest economy out of its "lost decades" funk, says Marubeni Corp. Chairman Teruo Asada.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 17, 2013

The rush toward Asia-Pacific FTAs

Whichever of three mega-trade-and-investment liberalization blocs is first to conclude a credible agreement will have a signficant impact on world trade and geopolitics.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 12, 2013

Global threat to food supply as water wells dry up

Wells are drying up and underwater tables falling so fast in the Middle East and parts of India, China and the United States that food supplies are seriously threatened, one of the world's leading resource analysts warned on July 7.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jul 2, 2013

Let's talk 100 percent kawaii!

Long before the mayor of Shibuya announced pop star Kyary Pamyu Pamyu as an official ambassador of kawaii culture, Sebastian Masuda, her art director, had been on a mission to spread "kawaii culture" across the world, advocating it as not only a potent source of Japan's emerging soft power, but also...
COMMENTARY / Japan / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Jul 1, 2013

Constitutional revision debate could make or break 'Abenomics'

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's popularity continues — the latest Nikkei and TV Tokyo survey shows his approval rating at 66 percent, his Liberal Democratic Party's victory in the Upper House election seems highly probable, "Abenomics" is still on course, and even medium-term economic growth seems possible...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jun 24, 2013

Abe's rhetoric reveals a growth strategy aimed at global conquest

The greatly hyped "third arrow" of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's economic plans has fallen spectacularly by the wayside. The stock prices on which Abe & Co. had staked their all began falling even as he was explaining his economic strategy in a speech.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 23, 2013

Taking the long Trans-Siberian road to Japan

In the late summer of 2009, while standing hung over on a pier at Fushiki Port in Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture, one of those little-visited industrial cities on the west coast of Honshu, I suddenly found myself staring into the eyes of a tiger. This came as no surprise: It seemed a quite proper way to...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 19, 2013

A U.S. 'pivot' to Latin America is long overdue

While the Obama administration and the media have made much ado about the U.S. 'pivot' to Asia, China has been lining up economic allies in Latin America.

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