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COMMENTARY / World
Dec 2, 2009

Rudd wrestles with refugee crisis

SYDNEY — Just when links between Indonesia and Australia were looking good, along come Sri Lankans fleeing in leaky boats. Suddenly the Indian Ocean marks a diplomatic and humanitarian standoff of grim proportions.
Japan Times
LIFE
Nov 29, 2009

Bearing the brunt

In a log cabin high on a wooded mountainside in Hiroshima Prefecture, Kazuhiko Maita, 61-year-old director of the nonprofit Institute for Asian Black Bear Research and Preservation, is puzzling over the fate of Japan's black bears.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Sep 6, 2009

Donald Keene: A life lived true to the words

Donald Keene is one of the greatest scholars of Japanese literature and has been highly influential in the establishment of Japanese studies in the West.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Jun 19, 2009

Pair seek POW apology from Aso

For the first time since the end of the war, Australian Joseph Coombs stepped onto Japanese soil, bringing back bitter memories of his days as a prisoner of war forced to work for the mining company run by Prime Minister Taro Aso's family in Fukuoka Prefecture.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 1, 2009

Pros and cons of the euro at 10

PALO ALTO, Calif. — The beginning of 2009 will long be remembered for terrible economic news and controversial economic policy in virtually every country. It also marks the 10th anniversary of the euro, the common currency further knitting together several hundred million Europeans in their economic...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jan 11, 2009

Asia University for Women: magic in the making

Perhaps it is only fitting in this time of dismal economic news that Bangladesh, a country known principally for natural disasters and human misery, provides an inspiring and uplifting story to relieve the gathering gloom.
COMMENTARY
Dec 18, 2008

What can be done to protect Zimbabweans

WATERLOO, Ontario — The responsibility to protect (R2P) norm, embraced universally at the world summit in New York in 2005, remains operationally elusive. Calls are growing for international intervention to lift the shroud of Robert Mugabe's ruinous reign from Zimbabwe's body politic.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 7, 2008

The Ventures: Still rocking after 50 years

The Ventures have just finished playing 33 songs in the space of two hours in front of some enthusiastic, though seated, middle-aged fans at the Hokutopia concert hall in Tokyo. Kazushi Kojima, who calls himself a "philosopher," is there with his son. He's been attending Ventures shows for 30 years....
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 5, 2008

Correcting outlaw America

PRAGUE — Is it possible to fall out of love with your own country? For two years, I, like many Americans, have been focused intently on documenting, exposing and alerting the nation to the Bush administration's criminality and its assault on the Constitution and the rule of law — a story often marginalized...
Reader Mail
Jul 24, 2008

Pakistan's war on terror

Regarding the July 15 editorial, "Troubles grow in Afghanistan": The appraisal that Pakistan is the most important factor in the resurgence of insurgents in Afghanistan is contrary to the facts and harshly unfair to the country, which has made great sacrifices in the war against terrorism. Pakistan has...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 18, 2007

The myopic state we're in

We all notice it eventually: how nice individual Japanese people are, yet how cold — even discriminatory — officialdom is toward non-Japanese (NJ). This dichotomy is often passed off as something "cultural" (a category people tend to assign anything they can't understand), but recent events have...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 6, 2007

Look back in anger

One way to learn what happened in one of history's most noxious but disputed episodes is to ask Satoru Mizushima. After what he calls "exhaustive research" on the seizure of the then Chinese capital Nanjing by Japanese troops in 1937, estimated to have cost anywhere from 20,000 to 300,000 lives, Mizushima...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 11, 2007

Trapped between borders

Frontier Mosaic: Voices of Burma from the Lands In Between, by Richard Humphries. Orchid Press, 2007, 180 pp., $29.95 (paper) "A man on a motorbike comes by and we then follow him through the streets of Mae Sot." So begins one of the narrative vignettes from "Frontier Mosaic." Based on extensive travel...
Japan Times
CULTURE / OTAKOOL
Jul 19, 2007

'Heavy-metal suicide'

Marty Friedman looks very metal.
Reader Mail
Jun 20, 2007

Contagious 'right-to-arms' notion

As an Australian, currently living in China and who has lived in Japan, I was very impressed with the June 5 editorial, "Avoid the security dilemma in Asia." Here in China, we are constantly informed of any military developments in Taiwan, Japan, the United States or the two Koreas.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2007

SDF deploys perky mascot to boast cuddly image

Perky cartoon character Prince Pickles -- with saucer eyes, big dimples and tiny, booted feet -- poses in front of tanks, rappels from helicopters and shakes hands with smiling Iraqis.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 16, 2006

Holocaust and nuclear denial

PRAGUE -- What connects Iran's nuclear ambitions and Holocaust denial?
EDITORIALS
Oct 22, 2006

China squeezes Pyongyang

A series of meetings last week among the foreign ministers of the United States, Japan, South Korea and China were significant for helping the four nations confirm their mutual cooperation in implementing sanctions against North Korea following its first nuclear-weapons test Oct. 9.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 14, 2006

Beware the muted enemy within remilitarizing Japan

On April 30, the Asahi Shimbun reported on the results of a Cabinet Office survey of public opinion regarding the Self-Defense Forces (SDF). The telephone survey was conducted between Feb. 16 and 26, with 1,657 of the 3,000 people contacted replying. Overall, 84.9 percent of respondents indicated they...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 1, 2006

A poetic Irish conversation

SIXTY INSTANT MESSAGES TO TOM MOORE by Paul Muldoon, Illinois: Modern Haiku Press, 2005, 32 pp., 20 dollars (paper). HARBOUR LIGHTS by Derek Mahon, Ireland: Gallery Press, 2005, 78 pp., 11.50 dollars (paper). Unlike the visual arts, which were transmitted to the West quite quickly, the literary arts...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Dec 15, 2005

Russian rightwingers ride benzene spill

MOSCOW -- The city of Khabarovsk is ill-starred. Founded by hopeful entrepreneurs as a major trade hub in the Russian Far East on the doorstep of China, it turned into a big dump -- a symbol of missed opportunities and disillusionment.
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2005

Defense info pact eyed with U.S.

Japan will study the feasibility of concluding a pact with the United States to prevent defense information from leaking, government sources said Saturday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 15, 2005

Independent brushstrokes

A commonly heard accusation is that Japanese oil painters are followers rather than innovators. It is a criticism that has been made against many early adopters in this country -- be they filmmakers, fashion designers, chefs or rock musicians -- and one that has even come from painters' compatriots....
Japan Times
Features
Sep 11, 2005

What's the Point?

Fabrice Blocteur may not be as well known as Marco Polo, Vasco da Gama, Ferdinand Magellan or Sir Francis Drake. But like explorers of old, this French-Canadian resident of a rural Kyoto village is on a quest to rewrite the maps through new discoveries.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 4, 2005

Selective thinking devalues the V-word's worth

There is a six-letter word so abused and perverted these days that I wouldn't blame the media for banning it altogether. It is the V-word and, I must confess, I hesitated to write this column about it myself. But journalists must not be daunted by trends that pollute . . . and so, here we go. The word,...
BUSINESS
Aug 17, 2005

Investor funds flourish, but caveat emptor

Ranging from hip-hop music to premium wines and a ramen court, funds are emerging in myriad fields to whet the appetites of investors tired of the minuscule interest on regular bank deposits and eager for a taste of adventure.
Japan Times
Features
Jun 19, 2005

Filming rough

If you are a documentary filmmaker, one surefire way to impress viewers is to expose some aspect of your chosen subject that conventional reporting chooses to ignore.
COMMENTARY
May 14, 2005

How the U.S. courts a diplomatic fiasco

LOS ANGELES -- The government of North Korea is difficult to deal with, no matter who you are. Just ask China's leaders. After all, they are Pyongyang's closest ally and yet they probably find dealing with leader Kim Jong Il not a whole lot more fun than their testy cross-strait exchanges with Taiwan's...

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?