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EDITORIALS
Jan 7, 2015

Don't duck war responsibility

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe must carefully consider the impact of his upcoming war anniversary message to avoid damaging ties with China and South Korea.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Nov 22, 2014

Hihōkan: Japan's vanishing sex museums

The real world ends beyond a thick, black curtain. On the other side is one of Japan's last remaining hihōkan (sex museum, literally "treasure palace") in the faded resort town of Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture — a strange, dimly lit space of questionable morals and dated fantasies.
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 20, 2014

Ministers' resignations recall the instability of other Cabinets in recent times

Monday's resignations by Cabinet ministers Yuko Obuchi and Midori Matsushima after only six weeks in office recalls the volatility of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's first Cabinet, but financial scandals are not the preserve of the Liberal Democratic Party alone.
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Oct 19, 2014

Abe's inner circle sprouting horns over next tax bump

A major battle appears to be brewing between the office of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Finance Ministry — the most powerful bureaucracy in Japan — over whether to raise the consumption tax from the current 8 percent to 10 percent next fall.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 19, 2014

Parliaments need a say on war

Democracies urgently need to modernize procedures and structures for going to war with parliamentary debate and sanction, instead of by government fiat based on the instincts of a strong-willed prime minister or president.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 5, 2014

Off the beaten path on Japan's paper trail

At a little roadside store in rural Nagano, a foreign tourist is miming a rice bowl with her cupped left hand. Firm in the belief that Japanese washi (paper — wa meaning Japanese and shi meaning paper) was made from rice, she waves her flattened right hand across the "bowl," miming her desire for "sheets"...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jul 1, 2014

Critics: What defines the conditions for military force?

Japan is at a historic crossroads in amending its long-held pacifist defense posture, a move that it may never reverse, and critics charge that the Abe administration's criteria for exercising the right to collective self-defense will prove ineffective.
COMMENTARY / Japan / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 21, 2014

Abe hijacks democracy, undermines Constitution

By short-circuiting the democratic process, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is abusing the trust put in him by the people. His initiative to reinterpret Article 9 of the Constitution to lift constraints on the Japanese military and permit collective self-defense is the most recent example of how Abe is trampling...
JAPAN / Politics
May 27, 2014

Abe moves to boost control of bureaucrats

The government has decided to create a new body that's seen as a political maneuver by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to tighten his grip on powerful government bureaucrats.
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
May 15, 2014

Pacifism at a crossroads following panel's verdict

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe takes a major stride toward his goal of ending Japan's pacifist stance and orders the ruling parties to open talks on legalizing collective self-defense.
JAPAN / Politics
May 9, 2014

Wiser Abe Cabinet logs record 500 days in office

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet on Friday marked the 500th day since its inception in December 2012, extending its record as the longest-serving lineup in the postwar era.
EDITORIALS
Apr 23, 2014

Resuscitating Japan-China ties

It's high time leaders of Japan and China stopped fanning the flames of narrow-minded nationalism and started talking to each other in an effort to put bilateral relations back on track.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 8, 2014

Kamikazes live on at their Chiran base

As a child growing up in California in the 1980s, I learned my share of Japanese words. Sushi, which my family would get for a treat on birthdays. Mochi (chewy rice cake), ramen and karaoke — all encountered at the Japanese shopping arcade downtown.
Reader Mail
Nov 27, 2013

A tale of two untimely deaths

William Andrews' Nov. 19 article "Wife fights decades-long battle to free activist leader," underscores the typical treatment of a death, or a human life, because a riot police member trumps a citizen. On the one hand a poor policeman, dispatched to Shibuya from Niigata was fatally set afire by demonstrators...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Nov 4, 2013

Diet reform paralyzed by hypocritical habits

Indecision is a much-criticized feature of Japanese politics. Diet sessions are rife with unproductive wrangling as the ruling and opposition camps dispute the timing of the submission of bills while avoiding constructive discussions on them.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Oct 24, 2013

Uruguay stoked to legalize marijuana production

Uruguay is about to go where no country has gone before by legalizing the cultivation and distribution of marijuana, with the left-of-center government regulating all facets of the trade.
EDITORIALS
Oct 22, 2013

Turn Japanese-Korean ties around

The chilly state of diplomatic relations between Japan and South Korea threatens to harm security cooperation among the two countries and the United States.
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 1, 2013

April to see sales tax hike, Abe confirms

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe goes ahead with raising the consumption tax while also offering a ¥5 trillion stimulus package to offset the negative impact on consumer spending.
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 28, 2013

Camera artist casts new light on Jomon millennia

The Jomon Period of Japanese history is so shrouded in the mists of time that any bid to fathom its secrets stretches even the usual bounds of prehistoric archeology. Yet as amateurs and experts alike have continued unearthing examples of Jomon pottery and stone tools for more than a century, the pieces of the puzzle are gradually coming together.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Sep 9, 2013

Renovating business and hope in Onomichi

The city of Onomichi in the southeastern part of Hiroshima Prefecture, which looks out to the Seto Inland Sea, has a rich and long tradition as a hub of trade. During the Edo Period (1603-1867), it prospered as a key docking point for domestic ships peddling goods, and from the early 20th century it...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2013

Why U.S. government is afraid of itself

The U.S. war on leaks has degenerated to a government deliberately destroying its property to keep its staffers from catching sight of publicly available information.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Aug 19, 2013

Officials search for fortune of Chun Doo-hwan, South Korea's last dictator

South Korea's last dictator lives in an L-shaped mansion protected by 5-meter stone walls and a plainclothes security team. He almost never goes outside, his longtime lawyer says, given the scrutiny he would face. Highlighting the extent of change in the nation he once ruled, Chun Doo-hwan is whiling...
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 17, 2013

China hit by rash of fake officials peddling 'power'

He had the swagger and trappings of a senior party cadre, and a natural authority that made him hard to contradict. The walls of his office in the heart of the Chinese capital were adorned with photographs of him next to retired generals and government officials. He drove a top of the range Audi and...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Aug 5, 2013

Iran's Rouhani sworn in as president, vows shift in relations with West

U.S. diplomatic posts in 19 cities in the Muslim world will be closed through the end of the week as a precaution, the State Department announces.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / FOCUS
Jul 19, 2013

Does U.S. agency's new office represent the workplace of the future?

The U.S. agency that manages nearly 35 million sq. meters of federal office space is moving back to its newly renovated headquarters in central Washington, where its employees are finding that their personal real estate footprint has been radically altered.
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 3, 2013

Opposition directly attacks 'Abenomics'

Opposition parties took aim Wednesday at Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's economic policies, only to give the Liberal Democratic Party chief another chance to play up his administration's "achievements" over the last six months.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past