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COMMENTARY / World
Aug 4, 2008

Trans-Atlantic stalemate

Barack Obama's European tour hints that the senator is Europe's choice to be America's next president. But Europeans should not expect too much. While Obama would likely restore civility and politeness to trans-Atlantic discourse, the sources of friction are more profound. The geopolitical interests...
COMMENTARY
Aug 2, 2008

Group of Three or G-13?

The Toyako, Hokkaido, summit witnessed moves to expand the Group of Eight forum of leading industrial nations through the addition of China, India and other new members.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2008

Hit jihadists where it hurts

LUXEMBOURG — In just a few years, irresponsible acts by self-styled Islamic jihadists have reversed the good will developed over centuries between the world's major religions. With bombs going off from Istanbul and around India, it appears that the acts of a few have enormous negative effects on many...
EDITORIALS
Aug 1, 2008

Paying up to be promoted

A corruption scandal involving the Oita prefectural board of education is expanding. At first, the corruption concerned teacher recruitment: Five educators, including a former No. 2 board official, have been indicted in this connection. Now it is also known that teachers who wanted to be promoted to...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jul 29, 2008

Dealing with the fairer sex; getting more from rail passes

Mac has a Japanese girlfriend and sometimes feels completely lost as to what is going on.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 29, 2008

Navigating the 'keigo' minefield

You've probably heard of blunders by Japanese businessmen in English, such as translating "hitotsu yoroshiku" as "one, please" instead of "I look forward to working with you." Less known, but no less common, are the slip-ups foreigners make in Japanese, especially when using that dreaded form of honorifics...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 27, 2008

Cancerlike corruption thrives in heads of bureaucrats

The ongoing investigation into charges of bribery and employment-rigging in the Oita prefectural school system has occasioned more than the usual amount of harsh commentary you hear when public servants do bad things. That's probably because in this case it is believed that the minds of innocent youths...
EDITORIALS
Jul 24, 2008

Happy birthday, Mr. Mandela

Mr. Nelson Mandela turned 90 last week. The former political prisoner turned world leader is a hero and an icon — one of the few people who truly deserves those labels in an age of hyperbole and superficiality. Mr. Mandela has "retired from retirement," settling down to a quiet life with his wife and...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2008

Osama bin Laden: the Islamic bard of terror

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY — In Riyadh last March, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia decorated U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney with the Kingdom's Order of Merit. This gesture elicited hundreds of Internet postings from Arabs condemning the award as treachery and lamenting the pitiful state of leadership in...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2008

Scorched-manager policy

MONTREAL — Signs of the American economy's perilous condition are everywhere — from yawning fiscal and current-account deficits to plummeting home prices and a feeble dollar.
EDITORIALS
Jul 22, 2008

Peace or justice with the ICC?

In a historic move, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has charged Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir with genocide. After years of conflict in Darfur that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, the move would seem to have been obvious, but the decision to bring...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 22, 2008

Whaling: the meat of the matter

Whales are magnificent creatures I have always dreamt of seeing in the flesh. However, tucking into a slab of whale steak at a restaurant in Tokyo was not what I had in mind. Nevertheless, this was a close encounter with one of the world's largest mammals that I felt I could not duck out of: If I was...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 21, 2008

Keep pressuring Pyongyang

HONOLULU (Scott Snyder is a senior associate of the Pacific Forum CSIS. This article was originally published in PacNet Newsletter.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jul 20, 2008

Temporary arrangements

Akio Watanabe knows what a dead end feels like.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 20, 2008

Lemon-picking prof prompts reflection on strange twists of fate

Lately I have been thinking about some wonderful teachers I was blessed with at university. Three, in particular, shaped my life. Had I not encountered them, I doubt that I myself would have become an author of fiction, a translator and a teacher.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 19, 2008

What's the beef with Seoul?

NEW YORK — At the outset of the violent protests in South Korea over imported beef from the United States, the entire Cabinet of South Korean President Lee Myung Bak offered to resign. Last week, Lee fired three of them. But beef, it turns out, represents just the tip of the iceberg of grievances against...
JAPAN
Jul 19, 2008

2007 Japan Times Readers' Fund

The 2007 Japan Times Readers' Fund has distributed ¥940,595 to six organizations to finance humanitarian projects for needy people in Asia. We wish to thank the many readers and groups for their generous support of our annual yearend fundraising campaign over the past 25 years.
JAPAN
Jul 19, 2008

Entrepreneur pioneers Akihabara tours

Jane Fong was one of the lucky few awarded a full Foreign Ministry scholarship to a master's program in international business at Sophia University in Tokyo — but she gave that up to become an entrepreneur in "Electric Town."
EDITORIALS
Jul 18, 2008

Inspiration for Japanese literature

Ms. Yang Yi, a Chinese resident in Japan, has won the 139th Akutagawa Prize, the prestigious literary prize launched in 1935. She became not only the first Chinese to receive the prize but also the first recipient who didn't start learning Japanese until after becoming an adult. We congratulate her on...
Japan Times
Features
Jul 13, 2008

Top creators call for museums to save nation's modern heritage

What do industrial design, architecture, manga, anime, video games and traditional craft techniques have in common? Well, apart from each having spawned some of Japan's most popular cultural exports, the similarity is this: Japan has no national museums dedicated to their preservation, display and study....
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 10, 2008

Confucianism makes a comeback in China

BEIJING (Daniel A. Bell is professor of political theory at Tsinghua University (Beijing). His latest book is "China's New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society."
Reader Mail
Jul 10, 2008

Emotional needs of 'generation Z'

Jenny Uechi's article is phrased in terms of a dominating opposition in Japanese society between seken -- the society or people that one deals with -- and what her article looks forward to -- namely, an "individualist revolution."
BUSINESS / G8 SUMMIT 2008
Jul 10, 2008

Nuke plant makers cast eye abroad

The voice of Atsutoshi Nishida, president of Toshiba Corp., rose an octave as he talked about the electronic giant's quest to build atomic power plants.

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo