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COMMENTARY / World
Feb 10, 2014

A wealthier Africa will depend on health care

One of Africa's biggest challenges to greater GDP growth and personal wealth is inadequate health care. Preventable and treatable diseases plague the population.
OLYMPICS
Feb 9, 2014

Tokyo 2020 Olympic chief Mori faces media scrutiny

Yoshiro Mori, the new Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games Organizing Committee president and former Prime Minister, faced some tough questions from the international media at a news conference on Sunday morning at the Main Media Center for the Sochi Games.
EDITORIALS
Feb 9, 2014

Samuragochi's shameful deception

What are fans of the supposedly deaf composer Mamoru Samuragochi to make of the revelation that another composer has ghostwritten more than 20 classical music scores credited to Samuragochi for the past 18 years?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Feb 9, 2014

Globally focused International Baccalaureate diploma needs local-level support

The education think tanks were busy in 2013. As the Year of the Snake slithered to a close, the education ministry made headlines by announcing bolstered English education plans — again — in an attempt to better prepare Japanese students for an increasingly connected world.
Japan Times
WORLD
Feb 9, 2014

Water shortages leaving world high and dry

On Jan. 17, scientists downloaded fresh data from a pair of NASA satellites and distributed the findings among the small group of researchers who track the world's water reserves. At the University of California, Irvine, hydrologist James Famiglietti looked over the data from the gravity-sensing Grace...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 8, 2014

Blast from the past: Lucky Dragon 60 years on

Sixty years ago, on March 1, 1954, a Japanese fishing boat named Lucky Dragon No. 5 was doused by radioactive fallout from a U.S. hydrogen-bomb test, codenamed Castle Bravo, on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Although the bomb was over 1,000 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima...
EDITORIALS
Feb 7, 2014

NHK's credibility at stake

Two of the more recent appointees to the NHK Board of Governors show their stripes so to speak by denying that the 1937 Nanjing Massacre happened, on one hand, and writing an essay in praise of the Emperor as a 'living god' on the other. Might employees for Japan's national broadcaster start to feel pressure to develop programs from a particular perspective?
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2014

Securing the Sochi Olympics

Parallel to the Sochi Olympics, another contest is already under way between the terrorists who seek to disrupt the games and the security forces of the Russian state.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 5, 2014

Tamogami finds right-wing niche

Last Sunday, a week before Tokyo residents go to the polls and choose a new governor, prominent candidates were campaigning hard in Ginza, showcasing their ability to manage a ¥13 trillion annual budget that almost equals Indonesia's national budget.
JAPAN
Feb 5, 2014

NHK governors reveal rightist views

A member of NHK's board of governors has written an essay praising a right-wing activist who committed suicide in the Asau00adhi Shimu00adbun building in 1993, raising questions about the public broadcaster's political neutrality.
EDITORIALS
Feb 3, 2014

Continue pension investigation

It is inexcusable that the government plans to wrap up the seven-year effort to identify as many as 51 million records of pension premium payments when more than 20 million pension records are still unidentified.
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2014

Tokyo election goes nuclear

Ignoring the powers that be, nuclear power takes center stage during an online debate involving the four major candidates for the Tokyo gubernatorial election — with three firmly against.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2014

Ministry official knocks down barriers to overseas study

The success of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's effort to internationalize Japan might depend on a young entrepreneur who runs his own educational business.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2014

The dark shadow of China's Cultural Revolution

Public discussion of the widespread abuses of Chinese citizens by Chinese citizens during the so-called Cultural Revolution is limited. Some seek atonement though.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 2, 2014

Should we be scared by the rise of Zuck?

On Tuesday, Facebook will turn 10 years old. It has 1.23 billion users. Ponder those two facts for a moment. A company that did not exist 10 years ago now has as many users as India has people.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 1, 2014

Pursuit of happiness

The merry residents of Japan have long sought to attain the 'pleasantest of all diversions
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 1, 2014

Tsuruga: truly a 'port of humanity'

The man in the black-and-white photograph wore a dark jacket with wide lapels. His hair was cut short and parted to one side. His eyes were directed toward the camera as if he were looking directly at me. I recognized him immediately: Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese vice-consul in Lithuania who helped...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Feb 1, 2014

War against stalkers broadens its aims

If you would, dear reader, please take a moment of your time today and let Prime Minister Shinzo Abe know that you'd like him to treat Japan's stalking problem seriously. Let him know that you'd like the Diet to make real laws that would protect the women who are subject to harassment, humiliation, injury...
Reader Mail
Feb 1, 2014

Anti-nuclear 'fad' belies the passion

Regarding the Jan. 26 AP article "Tokyo race focuses on nuke issue": I understand the strong public feeling against nuclear power that is a reaction to the 2011 Fukushima crisis.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 31, 2014

The Affordable Care Act's four-word Waterloo?

If the defense of a state prerogative, filed in federal court by Oklahoma's attorney general, succeeds, the decline of Obamacare will accelerate.
LIFE / Digital
Jan 30, 2014

Are Britain's plans for its patients' private data totally healthy?

A few days ago, I dropped into my doctor's surgery to pick up a prescription and was confronted by one of those large floor-mounted pop-up displays that one finds at exhibitions, trade fairs and circuses. It informed me of an exciting new scheme by which the "quality of care and health services" would...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jan 27, 2014

A death in detention in Tokyo and a bitter belated farewell

What was the back story to this Ghanaian's death from pneumonia? A pre-existing condition? Or something the immigration authorities wanted hidden? Without an autopsy, there would be no answers to these gnawing questions. We already knew all we would ever know.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 25, 2014

Age brings no respite from hard times for the 'lost generation'

Poverty is a relative term. As with age, you're as poor as you feel. Affluence brings with it rising expectations. Failure to meet them feeds the psychology, if not the dire physical deprivation, of poverty.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 24, 2014

Playing with fire is dangerous

Any moves that Japanese leaders make at this time to start the process of amending the Constitution would arouse strong feelings in Japan and abroad, against the nation's interests.
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jan 24, 2014

Don't let ANA off the hook for that offensive ad

If ANA had really wanted to 'change the image of Japan,' it should have avoided racializing its product. Instead, it's just business as usual.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 24, 2014

Pining for Lyndon Johnson, Americans got Christie

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's recent scandals won't impress anyone who has read of the political arm-twisting shenanigans conducted a half-century ago by U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2014

16 kick off Tokyo gubernatorial race

Campaigning for the Tokyo gubernatorial election officially kicked off Thursday with 16 candidates set to battle over national-level issues ranging from energy policy to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 23, 2014

Actress Nikaido sets her own agenda

Many young Japanese film actors start as models or pop stars and then, as they accumulate magazine covers or CD sales, move into TV and films. Many also play versions of themselves again and again on screen, which may suit their fans just fine, but makes for repetitive viewing.

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers