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Japan Times
JAPAN / READERS' FUND
Dec 20, 2009

Group teaching Afghan women literacy, IT skills

Fourth in a series
Reader Mail
Dec 20, 2009

Option of pulling out of Japan

Regarding the Dec. 16 article "What does Japan want from Washington?": Because of the juvenile behavior of the new Japanese government toward the United States, I am losing faith in it as a trustworthy ally and would recommend that the U.S. start playing hardball to test the motives of the new government....
EDITORIALS
Dec 20, 2009

Charting future ties with China

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping agreed to deepen "mutually beneficial strategic relations" between their countries in a meeting last Monday in Tokyo. Although Mr. Xi's exceptional audience with the Emperor later that day caused controversy, Japan should use his visit...
COMMENTARY
Dec 19, 2009

An abuse of intelligence

The U.K. government has been under pressure for some years to hold an inquiry into British participation in the Iraq war and on the events that led up to the decision to go to war. The various previous inquiries were seen by many as inadequate or whitewash. The government eventually conceded that once...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 17, 2009

Do humanoid robots deserve to have rights?

PRINCETON/WARSAW — Last month, Gecko Systems announced that it had been running trials of its "fully autonomous personal companion home care robot," also known as a "carebot," designed to help elderly or disabled people to live independently. A woman with short-term memory loss broke into a big smile,...
EDITORIALS
Dec 16, 2009

Understandings with Pyongyang

The Dec. 8-10 visit to Pyongyang by the U.S. special representative for North Korean policy, Stephen Bosworth, did not produce a concrete result on the issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The United States and North Korea reached "common understandings" on the need to resume the stalled six-party...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 15, 2009

To gargle or not to gargle?

The Web site for the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) contains a pandemic influenza storybook filled with personal reflections from survivors, family members and friends. One of the accounts tells the story of Art McLaughlin, who lived about 25 km east of Chicago during...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Dec 15, 2009

What do you make of today's Japanese youth?

Reader Mail
Dec 13, 2009

Swiss vote was not anti-Muslim

In his Dec. 6 article, "The Swiss and Iranian agents of provocation," Gwynne Dyer commits at least two mistakes — sadly so for one claiming to be an expert in international politics: (1) He compares the referendum in which the Swiss people took responsibility to voice their opinion with the actions...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 13, 2009

The colorful lure of carp in Japan

Two milestones were achieved at this year's All-Japan Show for Nishikigoi, or ornamental carp, which was held last month in Izumo, Shimane Prefecture.
JAPAN
Dec 12, 2009

Poorest nations seek $200 billion

COPENHAGEN — Developing countries raised the stakes Thursday for any successful outcome of the U.N. climate talks, demanding that the international community provide $200 billion to mitigate global warming in the poorest nations.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Dec 12, 2009

Relations between players, managers can be tense

LONDON — Managers tell players to use their heads, but two bosses, it seems, have literally been practicing what they preach.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 11, 2009

Australia shows off Asia's talent

BRISBANE, Australia — Over the past year, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has made waves in his country and across the region with his plans to spearhead the development of an Asia Pacific Community. Rudd is in part picking up where former Prime Minister Bob Hawke left off 20 years ago, when Australia...
EDITORIALS
Dec 10, 2009

The climate in Copenhagen

The U.N. Climate Change Conference is under way in Copenhagen with more than 15,000 participants, including delegates from 192 countries, attending. Its original goal was to conclude a new treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol and to set a global framework to curb greenhouse gas emissions between 2013...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 10, 2009

Turkey aims to reconnect with its neighbors

ANKARA — Nowadays, the international media are obsessed with the question of who "lost" Turkey and what that supposed loss means for Europe and the West. More alarmingly, some commentators liken Turkey's neighborhood policy to a revival of Ottoman imperialism. Recently, a senior Turkish columnist went...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 8, 2009

Ichihashi trial key test of legal reforms

In March 2007, the Japanese police came under intense scrutiny at home and abroad after Tatsuya Ichihashi escaped barefoot from under the noses of a group of officers at his apartment in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture. The body of British Nova teacher Lindsay Hawker was found shortly after partially buried...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 8, 2009

Inside Thailand's hidden separatist war

LEEDS, England — Thailand's former prime minister, Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, recently ignited a furor when he proposed that the separatist campaign in his country's Muslim-majority southern provinces might be solved politically, with a form of self-rule. Thailand's ruling Democrat Party immediately called...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Dec 8, 2009

Can Tatsuya Ichihashi get a fair trial under the new lay-judge system?

COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 8, 2009

Ichihashi trial key test of legal reforms

In March 2007, the Japanese police came under intense scrutiny at home and abroad after Tatsuya Ichihashi escaped barefoot from under the noses of a group of officers at his apartment in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture. The body of British Nova teacher Lindsay Hawker was found shortly after partially buried...
JAPAN / COP15 COPENHAGEN SPECIAL
Dec 7, 2009

A brief history of climate talks: looking back, looking forward

Industrialization in the 19th century brought many of the benefits we enjoy in the modern world, changing the structure of society, industry and economy. But nearly two centuries later, one of the downsides of the Industrial Revolution is gaining more attention: global warming.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 5, 2009

Tom-san, the big man in kids' soccer

So who is the most famous soccer coach in Japan? Well, it could be Japan team coach Takeshi Okada or maybe Gamba Osaka's Akira Nishino. On the other hand, it may be someone many adults have never heard of: Tom-san.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 3, 2009

Realizing an assertive post-American Europe

PARIS — As U.S. President Barack Obama arrives in Sweden to collect his Nobel Prize, the celebrations expose an awful truth: Europe's admiration for its ideal of an American president is not reciprocated. Obama seems to bear Europeans no ill will. But he has quickly learned to view them with the attitude...

Longform

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